After the massive success of Elden Ring and the legendary status of the Souls games, you’d think that FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki would be content with his work. In a new interview with PC Gamer, however, Miyazaki discusses his goals and inspirations, including how tabletop games influenced the creation of Elden Ring, which will welcome its first and final DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, on June 21.
“You might say that trying to capture that excitement of those old tabletop games and game books was one facet of making Elden Ring,” Miyazaki said. “But I think more than anything it’s just my personal preference when it comes to RPGs and exploring fantasy worlds, so you might see some of my personal idiosyncrasies come into play. I’m still in the process of making my ideal fantasy RPG. While Elden Ring is not quite it, it’s pretty close. It’s getting close.”
Elden Ring has sold over 23 million copies to date, marking a massive breakthrough for FromSoftware. Shadow of the Erdtree is said to be bigger than some RPGs on the market, and will no doubt catapult the game back into the spotlight for a few months.
“What we tried to achieve this time is something that’s not quite open field and not quite legacy dungeon, but something that kind of blends the two together and creates that better sense of verticality,” Miyazaki says.
“While you do have the large open field area, we wanted to not just capture the sense of scale and granularity, but the sense of variety as well. We tried to add to the variety of how we space out and structure the open field and legacy dungeons.”
Miyazaki has a love of cooking, and when asked if that passion seeps into his game-making philosophy, his answer was an inspiration.
“I enjoy making a stew, because the more you cook something down, the more it boils down the more it releases the flavor,” Miyazaki says. “You can’t really get it wrong with the ingredients: you just keep adding to it, keep boiling it, and it gets richer and richer. I think this was my approach in general to Elden Ring…Shadow of the Erdtree is spicy, but it looks extremely appetizing. It’s glowing from the bowl and makes you think ‘maybe I could eat this one, even if I’m not such a fan of spicy food.'”
