Between gameplay footage and developer commentary, From Software's marketing for Elden Ring has helped fans formulate some expectation of just how big the game is. It should not come as a surprise then that on top of Elden Ring's grand open-world, it is impossible to see and do everything in a single playthrough.
Back in 2019 when the game was first revealed, From Software touted Elden Ring as the studio's largest game to-date. Such a phrase to come when at that time only the reveal trailer had been shown had held players over for two years until more information finally came in the summer of 2021. When this happened, fans expectations were fortunately validated as Elden Ring's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, confirmed the previous statement by From Software, that it was indeed the studio's largest game. According to Miyazaki, they had been playing for about 30 hours without many detours, implying that main content alone can potentially take players upwards of at least 30 hours to complete.
In an interview with one of Elden Ring's producers, Yasuhiro Kitao, they confirm that the game will require multiple playthroughs to reach 100% completion. The interview comes from a special broadcast of Taipei Game Show 2022 where Kitao gave a presentation explaining Elden Ring's systems and answered a variety of questions. When asked about whether players can attain 100% completion in one playthrough, Kitao states, "Not quite. Technically, it's impossible to reach 100 percent due to the fact that there are branching point near the end, but you can certainly get pretty close." They also detail that players can finish the game without experiencing everything.
For those who have played previous From Software games, this information probably doesn't come as a shock. Kitao in this interview brings up the focus on replayability that older From Software games also featured. Looking at From Software's last title, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice featured multiple endings, most of which required players to perform a handful of specific steps and actions to view, like finding certain items, talking to certain NPCs, and defeating particular bosses. Practically every Souls game going back to the original Demon's Souls has featured multiple endings.
It was confirmed in 2021 by Miyazaki that Elden Ring has multiple endings, and that they are generally pretty open-ended in attaining. Perhaps this is to say that Elden Ring is prioritizing late-game decisions over collectathon-styled endings, which would make sense considering how large the game is supposed to be. Or rather, Miyazaki is suggesting that some endings have multiple ways of being attained, whether it is tied to how long one's playthrough is or number of bosses defeated.
Elden Ring launches February 25 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.