Elden Ring will feature scabbards and sheaths for weapons, but they will not introduce a new gameplay mechanic to the Souls series formula.

　　Speaking on the ResetERA forums, Omnipotent, a well-known insider who correctly revealed information on the game before the official unveiling last week, confirmed that Elden Ring will indeed feature scabbards and sheaths for weapons, something fans have been asking for a while, but no actual sheathing mechanic.

　　Since this has made some traction on reddit I guess, I made the implication the other day that you could sheathe your weapon, I meant to draw attention to the fact that sheathes and scabbards were included with weapons now, since that was something people had been asking for. But there is no like, dedicated sheathe ability.

　　Elden Ring promises to be From Software's biggest game yet, featuring multiple areas that can be approached in a variety of ways, as highlighted earlier this week by Hidetaka Miyazaki himself.

　　One of our big themes for development of this new world was that, because of the grandeur and sense of scale of it, we didn't want players to get lost and not have any clue of what to do or where to go. So there is an element of guidance, particularly at the beginning. There is a mainline route that they can follow, but at any time they're free to break off this route and to take the untrodden path. We wanted to focus on a design that caters to that high level of freedom, that free order of progression throughout the world - which order you choose to tackle the different areas, the different bosses, and how you approach each of them as well. You may get sent to a couple of areas against your will, but there's a lot of ways that you can explore and approach these different situations.

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