Ender Magnolia dev explains why they lowered the sequel’s difficulty- “You only need one soulslike a year. That should be a FromSoftware game.” 

Released on January 23, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is the sequel to 2021 metroidvania hit Ender Lilies. Talking to Famitsu recently, Binary Haze Interactive’s CEO Hiroyuki Kobayashi explained why the indie label and their developers made Ender Magnolia easier than its predecessor. He revealed that a single comment from a programmer on the team changed the way the devs looked at Ender Magnolia’s difficulty level. 

First of all, Kobayashi looks back on the first game in the series, Ender Lilies. He mentions that when making Ender Lilies, the fledgling game company had all kinds of ideas for the game, including sandbox elements, but ended up looking to Dark Souls developer FromSoftware for inspiration. “From around that time, FromSoftware’s games were becoming popular all around the world, so we decided to take our cue from their stance,” adding that “Ender Lilies was the result of pursuing a cool look, including the movement, with a perfect level of difficulty.” 

However, he adds that “Although Ender Lilies is often referred to as a high difficulty ‘soulslike,’ I don’t think it is really a ‘soulslike’ (‘death game’ in Japanese). Rather, it’s more like an entry point to the metroidvania genre.” Kobayashi goes on to explain how Ender Lilies maintained a balance between being difficult but beatable, with the emphasis on the game’s lingering motion and distinctive 2D graphics. But what about its sequel, Ender Magnolia?  

“We had many discussions about Ender Magnolia’s difficulty level.” Kobayashi reveals. “Personally, I thought it would be best to make it more difficult. I didn’t want people who had played the previous game to feel that this game was ‘lacking’ or ‘easier than the previous one’ when they played it. But the main programmer said to me, ‘Why don’t we stop making everything a soulslike?’ and this stuck with me. He said that ‘As a player, you only need one soulslike a year. That should be a FromSoftware game.” 

Looking back over the feedback on the Early Access version of Ender Mangnolia, Kobayashi observes that comments ranged from those who were happy that it was easier than Ender Lilies, to those who were disappointed with the lower difficulty. Regarding the final game, Kobayashi adds that “There is a selection of difficulty levels, so I hope users will be able to play on the difficulty that they prefer.”  

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (Steam).