Elden Ring is "maybe not quite" a JRPG, but Ys and Trails head says it's "difficult" to define the genre in general: "It can't really be described"

Elden Ring screenshot showing Melina, a young woman with short coppery hair and one eye.

Does Elden Ring count as a JRPG? The president of Ys and Trails series studio Nihon Falcom, Toshihiro Kondo, thinks "maybe not quite," but in general believes it's a "difficult" genre to actually describe.

While JRPG stands for 'Japanese role-playing game,' its usage when categorizing games has never felt quite so simple. Not every developer is actually a fan of the term in the first place – last year, Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida expressed that he doesn't like it since, going back in time, "it was like a discriminatory term" that was used "as though we were being made fun of for creating these games." However, not everyone feels this way – Final Fantasy 7 director Yoshinori Kitase said he's "absolutely fine" with it, and in a new interview with GameSpot, Kondo says it's "now something I embrace."