FromSoftware's Small but Mighty Team
FromSoftware, the team behind games such as Elden Ring and Dark Souls, has a surprisingly small development team compared to other triple-A studios. Armored Core 6 producer Yasunori Ogura shares the numbers behind the developing giant, which helps explain how FromSoftware manages to consistently deliver hit games with such a small team.
“FromSoftware has around 400 employees,” Ogura says, “with about 300 dedicated to development.” It’s a fairly small team when compared to other game developers, especially given the scale and polish of Elden Ring and Armored Core 6.
Ogura explains that FromSoftware chooses to shift developers between projects depending on the current needs and progress of each game. At peak times, up to 230 developers were working on Armored Core 6 and a similar number on Elden Ring simultaneously.
With such a small team, FromSoftware must be very efficient in order to deliver high-quality games like Elden Ring and Armored Core 6 within a short timeframe. However, concerns about crunch and work-life balance arise, given the intense development schedule.
As Armored Core 6 nears completion, FromSoftware is likely already working on its next project, possibly Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Check out our Elden Ring review for our thoughts on the amazing adventure game, and find out everything we know about the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree release date.
