The cutscenes and character interactions in “Elden Ring” appear to be on par with those in Sekiro, and many of them are linked to a new place called the Roundtable Hold.
In a recent Taipei Game Show broadcast, producer Yasuhiro Kitao explained the scope and role of the game’s cast. A fan questioned if “Elden Ring” had a lot of cutscenes, like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Kitao responded that while there are some movie-style sequences, like we saw in the network test, there are a lot more “conversation cutscenes” with other characters.
“As I recall, there weren’t many actual movie sequences in Sekiro, with the only real examples being before boss battles, so I assume the questioner is referring to conversation cutscenes with NPCs,” he said. “There are a lot of NPCs in this title as well. There is also a location in the game known as the Roundtable Hold, where several NPCs gather and can be talked to. Conversations in these sorts of locations, which naturally all tie into the game’s own overarching story, should provide a lot of enjoyment themselves. If you’re imaging something along the lines of the volume in Sekiro, you should be satisfied, I would think.”
The Roundtable Hold was initially shown in a few old screenshots, and one popular hypothesis is that it will serve as “Elden Ring‘s” Firelink Shrine-style hub, with merchants, mentors, craftsmen, and other NPCs making their way there as you find them in the wild.
“These NPCs all have their own relationships with the world of Elden Ring, and rather than make the main storyline explicit through text, we felt it was more entertaining and edifying for the player to [obtain] key information via the spoken lines of these characters,” Kitao added.
Kitao also discussed how the new “Elden Ring” game relates to the Dark Souls series, and stated that FromSoftware is optimistic the game will not be delayed again, and that they are now working on a day-one patch.