That's the main campaign: If you feel so inclined, you may spend "dozens" more hours on it.

In a video presentation shown at the 2022 Taipei Game Show, FromSoft producer Yasuhiro Kitao noted that Elden Ring's upcoming action RPG will take around 30 hours to complete—but you might put in a lot more time if you choose.

"There are a lot of people who were worried that it might be short, but we're trying to get around 30 hours," Kitao said. "But if you do this and that, there's probably dozens and dozens more."

Developers believe players should not worry about purchasing Elden Ring: It may be one of Fiance Software's first games at retail since 2009's Bayonetta, but they say FromSoft has no concerns.

However—as we know from the past — Fromsoft titles often offer an extraordinary amount of replay value through their incredibly deep mechanics.

For example, Dark Souls' online multiplayer mechanic allowed players to play together for hundreds of hours.  Dark Souls 2 likewise had incredible amounts of content.

"This will vary considerably from player to player, but the goals set during development are that the main route should be finishable in about 30 hours," Kitao added. "The game as a whole is quite massive, with many hundreds of additional hours of gameplay, but if we're only talking about the main path, it shouldn't take more.

The length of a game is an inexact science. Give me a huge, teeming world that I can get lost in, and I'll blow playtime estimates out of the water just strolling about and appreciating the sights. A little quick experience, on the other hand, may be every bit as thrilling.

Fortunately, FromSoft seems to be doing all it can to make Elden Ring as challenging as possible. Kitao said that because the game world is so vast, developers are taking additional measures to avoid putting players under needless stress.

"When you die in this game, for example, the crystallized form of the experience you have gained, known as 'souls' in prior games and 'runes' here, is left on the scene of your death," he went on.

As a result, players are prone to worrying about how long it will take them to traverse the map and return to where they died—shouldn't that be enough? The nature of these deathtraps encourages this as you can always find more. It's all part of the fun! But many players just don't have the time because of their job.

We've also discovered several challenging locations, where many players will perish and need to restart the challenge, as we look at it from a functional standpoint.

"The player can pick the option of respawning very close to where they died in these regions. This is another example of the team's efforts to develop procedures to reduce player stress as a result of the game's massive scale. "

"I'm not sure if "we made respawning easier because you'll die repeatedly" makes us feel any better, but I'll take what I can get," says Kitao.

Elden Ring has also officially gone gold, according to the Taipei Game Show. In this day and age of digital distribution, it's a phrase that has less meaning than it once did, but it does imply (definitely) no more delays.

Kitao also discussed Elden Ring's action RPG elements, which are certainly visible in the game's combat. You can parry and evade at will—and it really looks like you need to!

This is good because I know if it was just one direction of attack I would be bored by now. After three Dark Souls games, FromSoft still has yet to let us down with its unique gameplay mechanics.

"[The] player may switch between a variety of special moves that use up different amounts of rune power," he noted. "Rune power replenishes when players defeat enemies or destroy certain objects."

Elden Ring will be released on February 25, barring some unanticipated calamity.