Elden Ring and Armored Core 6 Was Reportedly Developed By a Staff of 300 Devs
There is no denying that FromSoftware has really bounced back and regained its reputation in the last few years, thanks to games like Elden Ring, which even managed to snag the Game of the Year award in 2022.
But, with such a densely packed, large open-world environment, one would think that there’d be thousands of devs working on it.
Well, here’s the interesting part. According to a recent interview with PCGamer, Yasunori Ogura, the producer of Armored Core 6, revealed that Elden Ring was actually developed by just 300 devs (during its peak hours). It’s actually quite surprising, considering the sheer scale and complexity of the game.
In terms of gameplay, Armored Core 6 is a more open-ended experience than previous games in the series, but still the same number of devs have been working on the game. Ogura says:
To give a broad image, we have just about 400 employees at FromSoftware, and about 300 of those are development staff. That pool of development staff is shifted around, moved between projects as needed, depending on the current situation with a project and the current period of development.
At peak times, you’d have up to 200, 230 developers working on Armored Core 6. This was similar to Elden Ring as well. At the peak period of that project, you’d have a similar number of staff working on it simultaneously. So staff is moved around fluidly as and when needed.”
The Simple Secret!
Well, seems as if FromSoftware is able to do all this with a small team because they have a lot of experience and a clear vision for their games. They, in no way are new to the industry and know how to get things done.
They have a small development team, but they are able to shift resources around to work on multiple projects simultaneously. This is what allows FromSoftware to make games more quickly than if they had to create a separate team for each project.
They’ve mastered the art of creating great games without needing an overwhelmingly huge team. Quality over quantity, I guess!
According to the same article, Ubisoft had also announced that they’ll be bumping up the number of developers from 2,000 to 2,800 across multiple games.
Now, Armored Core 6 just around the corner, releasing in exactly one month, on August 25th. The gameplay preview for AC6 just dropped today, and it will surely be interesting to see what they can achieve with their next game.
Also, at the moment, FromSoftware’s working on Elden Ring’s upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which probably wouldn’t release for some months now. There isn’t a definite release date date, but we will make sure to keep you updated on all developments as new information becomes available.
