Fans of the Souls series are worried that Elden Ring may not look as good as the Demon’s Souls remake on PS5. Are their fears warranted?
Elden Ring will be with us on February 25, 2022, and some fans have concerns that it won’t live up to the 2020 remake of Demon’s Souls.
Despite being a new IP, Elden Ring is the latest entry in FromSoftware’s Souls stable, with its gameplay heavily inspired by previous games. Although, the beta gameplay footage on PS5, Xbox, and PC looks more like Dark Souls 3 than the PS5 remake of Demon’s Souls, which has worried the game’s community about the game’s visual fidelity.
Elden Ring creator’s comments
Souls series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki’s comments in an interview with Edge Magazine have also worried fans of FromSoftware’s work, especially those who are looking forward to Elden Ring. While some fans already felt that Elden Ring didn’t look as good as Demon’s Souls, Miyazaki’s words will do little to alleviate their fears.
The celebrated developer claimed to have not played the Demon’s Souls remake, not wanting to revisit “old memories.” He also stated he’s aware of how good the game looks, and that this has added a layer of pressure to him and his team.
He said, “Graphical fidelity is not something we put as the top priority. What we ask for on the graphics side depends on the systems and requirements of the game itself, and it takes less priority compared to the other elements of development.”
“So, this is always an area where I feel a little bit apologetic towards my graphics team because I know they work extremely hard. And they’ve worked extremely hard on Elden Ring – our graphics-systems team and our programmers have been pushing a lot of new features to create the best-looking games we’ve ever made.”
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Community reaction to Elden Ring’s visuals
Reddit user Eisenmonoxidc complained that Elden Ring’s graphics look too much like a last-gen FromSoftware game. They said, “Graphically wise, the game reminds me of Dark Souls 3. Textures are not high-resolution, and the lighting looks dated.”
Others agreed but maintained a positive outlook. “When it comes to graphics, well, it’s not DeS that sometimes looks basically like a movie, but it’s decent for a cross-gen open world,” one user said. “I just wish tree models looked slightly better, everything else is fine.”
However, in another post, Reddit user Mr_Jackabin defended Elden Ring’s visuals when compared to Demon’s Souls. They argued, “All of Demon’s Souls remakes resources went into making the game look and sound better, it is still the same buggy, imbalanced game it was. Does it look good? Yes. Could they have tried harder in other areas? Also yes.
“Elden Ring is open world, which means it wouldn’t look as good as a linear game that FromSoft would make. This should go without saying if you know anything about games. Skyrim would look better if all of its assets went into making Whiterun the only playable area.”
Time will tell how Elden Ring looks in its final form.
