How does FromSoftware release AAA games so frequently? Elden Ring boss says "we are just blessed with a great staff" that the studio empowers and retains
This studio is not just known for an even by Japanese standards exploitative work culture, but it also reuses assets of all kinds far more liberally than other developers. Art is by far the biggest cost factor in games development and they are taking significant shortcuts wherever they can.
I will say that reusing assets is 100% okay, and I actually wish more studios did this. You don't need to make everything from scratch. It's okay to reuse the thing you made previously.
I dunno. If the dlc is like the rest of the game and I see the same dungeon changed slightly 20 times I'm going to be disappointed. But I guess that's what reviews are for.
Note a difference between that and what we're talking about. We're saying that if you modeled a table in your previous game, just use that same table again.
Repetitive use of assets within a single game is another thing
Like that recent thing where people were talking about how a Halo map used a single rock in it, just scaled and rotated in different ways. Clever recycling of assets happens all the time and people never even notice. Even in the trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, you can see they reused some model rigs - like how Messmer has the same standing idle pose as the Cleanrot Knights (though knowing FromSoft, there's probably some lore implications behind it).
Though, if they make us fight a pair of Ulcerated Tree Spirits in a Scarlet Rot room or something, I might have some unkind words to say...
Elden ring dungeons and dungeon bosses did get kinda samey. But god i did not care, there was a list of i think 120 bosses in the game, and i had to be sure each and every one got murdered. I honestly hope this new dlc is a window to the past and the whole ass map gets reused to form the new lands, and we get another 120 bosses to slay.