Elden Ring to Feature Watchtowers That Will Help Players Discover Smaller Dungeons

Elden Ring will feature structures called Watchtowers that will aid players in exploring The Lands Between, From Software confirmed.

Speaking with Indonesian website Jagatplay, as reported and translated by eXputer, From Software’s Yasuhiro Kitao confirmed that these Watchtowers will help players discover smaller dungeons that are easy to miss, marking them on the map. Similar features are included in pretty much every modern open-world game, so it will be interesting to see how From Software will tweak it for their upcoming title.

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Players are indeed likely to miss some of these small dungeons in The Lands Between, especially during exploration. But relax, we’re also implementing some ways to help you find these dungeons. For example, you could find a structure called a Watchtower that will give you clearer vision around. You can zoom in with this structure, finding dungeons that will automatically mark on your map.

Speaking about the Legacy Dungeons in Elden Ring, Yasuhiro Kitao also confirmed that there won’t be any level requirement, but some of them can only be accessed once a specific item has been found.

There is no level limit required for you to enter and clear the Legacy Dungeon. If you find it, you can even clear it with a level 1 character. But there will be some dungeons that require you to have special items or equipment to enter.

Yasuhiro Kitao also touched upon a variety of other topics, including how Elden Ring will make it easier for newcomers to learn the mechanics. The game will feature tutorials in the vein of those seen in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and it will be possible to read these tutorials again via item descriptions.

While we don’t know if this system is well received at Sekiro, we do find features like pop-tutorials to be quite effective. He immediately taught how the unique Sekiro system worked, which even then, didn’t feel familiar to veteran Souls gamers. So we wanted to bring those same elements to Elden Ring, relying on tutorial pop-ups with images and text.

The only thing we regret about Sekiro is the absence of a feature to re-access these tutorials after they appear as a pop-up. At Elden Ring, we’re going to summarize this tutorial into items that gamers can access so they can reread it whenever they want.

Elden Ring launches on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One on January 21st, 2022