Over the past couple decades, the cult classic 2009 game Demon’s Souls and its successors have rallied a fanbase devoted to their punishing difficulty and cryptic lore. The niche went mainstream in 2022 when Elden Ring was released to universal acclaim, adding an open world and ways to smooth the difficulty for even broader appeal. At Summer Game Fest, I had the chance to speak with the man behind it all, Hidetaka Miyazaki.
As director of each of the aforementioned games and de facto creator of the “Soulslike” game style, Miyazaki has a fervent following — the mere sight of him in Los Angeles for Summer Game Fest sparked fan and press attention. He was in town to promote the upcoming Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, which publisher Bandai Namco was letting attendees preview much like it did for me a few weeks ago.
In a back room of Bandai Namco’s preview area, with sounds of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero spilling through the walls, I sat with three other journalists to chat with Miyazaki. Over the course of an hour, we asked him questions and, through a translator, the famed game creator thoughtfully answered everything we had to ask about Shadow of the Erdtree and more.
Shadow of the Erdtree is a $40 expansion, coming out on June 21. It adds over 100 weapons, 10 major bosses and multiple legacy dungeons in a new playing area around the size of Limgrave, the starting zone in Elden Ring.
The first question of the preview was specifically how big Shadow of the Erdtree’s zone will be. Though Miyazaki wouldn’t elaborate beyond the previously stated information, he did say that “without a doubt, compared to all the past DLC we’ve done for other games, it is by far the biggest in terms of scale and volume.”
And from there, the answers got more interesting, covering the bosses, weapons, architecture, poison swamp — and even Miyazaki’s favorite FromSoftware game.
Read more: Elden Ring DLC Preview: Tough Bosses, New Weapons and More Mystery
Watch this: Elden Ring DLC Preview: Tough Bosses, New Weapons and More Mystery
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The DLC was originally meant to be in the base game
When I asked Miyazaki what he wanted to deliver in the expansion that players hadn’t experienced in the original, the answer touched on what Miyazaki told Eurogamer back in February: The DLC completes Elden Ring, since Shadow of the Erdtree’s content was originally planned for the base game.
“I would say the story itself was something that we were hoping to originally put in the base game, but it just didn’t work out and didn’t fit,” Miyazaki said. “As a result, Miquella’s entire story arc, which is part of the original lore, is something that the DLC explores quite thoroughly.”
That extends to all content that was originally planned to be in the base game — like what famed author and A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin contributed.
“Just to make sure there’s no confusion among the audience, I want to reiterate that the story of the DLC, it’s not that George R.R. Martin has comprised anything new or different from what he had contributed in the base game,” Miyazaki said.
“If anything, the lore and mythology of the world that you see in Elden Ring, he had even created the lore that covers the DLC — it’s just that we couldn’t put it in the original game,” he continued. “So we’re almost closing the loop in terms of his contribution in the form of the DLC.”
When a later question asked what’s in store for the DLC’s story, Miyazaki explained it with a weave metaphor.
“If you were to say Miquella’s story arc, perhaps those are the vertical strings of the weave. What I think comprise the horizontal strings of the weave are much of Malika’s past that we didn’t really get to experience in the base game,” Miyazaki said. “So between the two, I think it provides a lot more context and a lot more of the answers to people’s theories, and the fragments of information that people experienced through the main game.”
Like any good investigator of Miyazaki’s cryptic lore, I’ll take a stab at interpreting this: The vertical strings refer to the main story players will experience in Shadow of the Erdtree while the horizontal strings refer to background information that adds context to the overarching story of Elden Ring.
Shadow of the Erdtree has 10 new major bosses, with other minor ones at the end of smaller dungeons.
What about the bosses?
When asked about the 10 (and potentially more) new bosses, Miyazaki didn’t reveal anything specific about what’s in store for players — but he did put them at the center of the DLC’s experience.
“Quite simply, the new challenges for the player are going to be the boss encounters as well as the different kinds of threats that the world will impose on people in different areas to explore,” Miyazaki said.
And no, he wouldn’t say more than that there are “10-plus” bosses in the DLC. But he did say that they pose different levels of difficulty. For certain bosses, Miyazaki set the challenge target for players who’ve tackled a majority of the base game, “which means we’ve kind of really pushed the envelope in terms of what we think can be withstood by the player.”
“Of course, some bosses are a necessary part of the story development and arc, but some are not,” Miyazaki said. “The ones that aren’t are especially difficult, I think will pose a very good challenge and obstacle for players.”
While he didn’t give any specifics, Miyazaki did cryptically recommend looking to post-DLC release chatter to see which fights resonated. He hinted that one fight in particular came to mind, “that, design-wise, I mean visual design, a lot of fans are probably going to react, ‘Oh wow, this is a FromSoftware boss.'”
In response to a later question, Miyazaki said FromSoftware considered what players found fun versus what they found stressful for boss encounter mechanics in the base game after Elden Ring was released. “We tried to make that the foundation of the boss encounters of the DLC, so hopefully players will find it much more engaging and fun,” he said.
“But if that is not the case, then I’m sorry!” Miyazaki joked.
Shadow of the Erdtree comes out June 21 for $40.
What can the DLC’s architecture tell us about its world?
Miyazaki famously incorporated gothic medieval European architecture and design into Demon’s Souls and continued to do so in Dark Souls and Bloodborne, giving his FromSoftware series a signature look as he wove the historic style into his dark fantasy worlds. That continued in Elden Ring, and keeps going with the DLC as ancient buildings tell stories about the Land of Shadow.
When I asked what the architecture would reveal in Shadow of the Erdtree, Miyazaki explained that there are a few aesthetic components that comprise the DLC. One is the Erdtree itself and “the realm of shadow that it was hiding all along, and how that was revealed.”
“Another is in the original world setting. There is the sort of a culture or a society of the Erdtree, but in addition, there are hints and easter eggs of ruins that predates a lot of that society and culture that you see,” Miyazaki said. “So uncovering and discovering that is a big part of what helps inform the art direction.”
And we’ve already seen a bit of that culture in the ruins: the dancing lion boss, as it’s called in Japanese. We’ve already seen it in both gameplay and story DLC trailers. “I think evokes a lot of that oriental culture that you can kind of see throughout the ruins,” Miyazaki said.
That culture was in place before the Erdtree, which is promising for lore divers who want to know about the society predating Marika and her domination of the Lands Between. But Miyazaki also identified visual motifs that are unique to the Lands of Shadow: “This visual expression of the graveyard, and it comes across much more spiritual in these areas where a lot of death is gathered, as opposed to previous areas.”
The dueling shield pictured here is one of eight new weapon categories in Shadow of the Erdtree.
Will the new weapons make the base Elden Ring easy?
Among the base Elden Ring’s armory are several weapons, like the Rivers of Blood katana or the Blasphemous Blade greatsword, which are notoriously powerful and make some bosses trivial. So when asked if any of the over 100 new weapons and eight weapon classes coming in the DLC necessitated changes to boss encounters in the main game, Miyazaki denied that the company had tweaked any of them to accommodate the new weapons.
“With that said, the new weapon classes aren’t necessarily clearly better than the existing weapon classes, so I don’t think players are going to feel a drastic or insurmountable change in the difficulty curve just because they have access to these new weapons,” Miyazaki said.
In my preview playing a few hours of the DLC, I got to try out several of these weapons, including the martial arts-enabling fists, dueling shields, throwing axes and throwing knives, heavy katanas and more. But even the new light greatsword, which I immediately loved for its flowing strikes that let me fight like a Jedi, didn’t give me an outsized edge in combat — it just forced me to play differently. It’ll take time to master.
If anything, the new weapons may introduce new ways to approach and beat the old bosses, he continued, perhaps adding a new dimension or layer to those encounters. “Might some weapons be better against certain bosses? Perhaps. But that remains to be seen what the players do,” Miyazaki said.
In terms of player-versus-player combat, a hallmark of Elden Ring and preceding Soulsborne games, someone else asked if the new arsenal of weapons will give DLC owners an unfair advantage over players who only have the base game — which Miyazaki again refuted, saying the DLC’s content isn’t designed to make it overpowered or imbalanced.
“Naturally, the increase in variety may lend itself to new strategies that people who don’t have the DLC may not be exposed to,” Miyazaki said. “Of course my desire is that everyone experience the DLC, but barring that, I think the experience won’t be that jarring.”
Shadow of the Erdtree, the award-winning Elden Ring’s DLC, will release on June 21.
Why did you make the DLC villain Messmer hot?
As the interview wore on, the reporters got to the tough questions, like this one: Given Elden Ring’s propensity for grotesque monsters and bosses, why did they choose to make Messmer the Impaler so handsome? The ostensible villain of the Shadow of the Erdtree bears more resemblance to the pale, willowy men drawn by famed Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano than the physically outlandish bosses fought in Elden Ring like Godrick or Mohg.
After joking that Bandai Namco encouraged FromSoftware to make him attractive, Miyazaki carefully noted that Messmer’s role may change as players progress through the DLC.
“I think how Malendia kind of served as the face to a degree of the original Elden Ring, Messmer is the current face, but will he remain this way to the end of the DLC? I cannot guarantee. That remains to be seen,” Miyazaki said.
And as for Messmer’s good looks, well, “Messmer may look like this right now, but as you play the DLC and get more into it, I think you’ll understand, ‘Oh, it’s FromSoftware,'” Miyazaki said.
The DLC’s poison swamp
In the Dark Souls and Bloodborne lineage of games, one recurring feature is infamous for its unique misery: poison swamps. Elden Ring got a pair of such areas in the fetid, Scarlet Rot-filled Swamp of Aeonia at the center of Caelid as well as the underground Lake of Rot. As he’s noted in other interviews, Miyazaki confirmed that players will face another poison swamp in Shadow of the Erdtree — but he thought hard about previous iterations of the famous feature when making the one in the DLC.
“In terms of the poisonous swamp, I guess in the original Elden Ring I went a little too far. So I’m trying to take some learnings from that,” Miyazaki said. “And you can say the version that exists in the DLC, which I’ve already confirmed, applies a lot of those learnings.”
Knowing the internet has already been abuzz wondering if the DLC will have a crazy poison swamp, Miyazaki wanted to “curb expectations and reiterate that it exists, but I’ve tailored it.” He continued that some fans might be disappointed at that news, and in his cryptic way, hinted at what is in store for fans.
“In between it existing and not existing, with this version, let’s just say I try to imagine different ways I want to die as a player or be killed. So that expression of myself has been imparted into the poison swamp, ” Miyazaki said.
“So, not in the poison swamp itself — that’s been curbed — but in other parts of the gameplay, there are many ways to die,” Miyazaki said.
What lessons will you take from Elden Ring into future games?
I had to ask what’s coming next from FromSoftware and, as expected, Miyazaki didn’t give any specific answer. But he did explain what he and others at the studio learned from the development and success of Elden Ring.
Unlike Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro, Elden Ring is truly open world, letting players proceed along their own path with few restrictions in the way to dictate their progression. It also had various mechanics and abilities, such as summonable Spirit Ashes for boss fights, that lowered the difficulty for players who wanted to use them.
“Traditionally, we’ve always liked the higher-difficulty curve type of games and experiences. But I think that nature in and of itself alienates a portion of the game-playing audience, whereas Elden Ring succeeded in casting a wider net but at the same time keeping that core high learning curve,” Miyazaki said.
“I’m not saying an open world game or experience is necessarily the answer, but I think it’s the degree of freedom and the amount of freedom that we give players that helps balance or offset that difficulty curve and makes the game more accessible and engaging for a certain player demographic,” Miyazaki continued.
“So I think that combination between freedom and difficulty will become a big hint in whatever it is we do next,” Miyazaki said.
Miyazaki on Miyazaki: Being a fan favorite
As the interview wore on, I wanted to ask Miyazaki whether his popularity among fans — who have been so eager for news about the DLC that even a sighting at Summer Game Fest drove media interest — has added any pressure or consideration for his games. And as readers might have expected, the creator of an entire genre of action horror games remained humble and grateful, with humorous asides.
“The fact that my trip to LA has become news is, of course, very flattering, but I do want to comment that it’s not like paparazzi was waiting for me at the airport,” Miyazaki said. “But all joking aside, I think quite honestly it makes me happy that people notice. Because it’s the fans that allow and enable us to do what we do, it’s their support and passion for our projects.”
“I know very well what it’s like to not even be noticed or have no one pay attention to you, so this 180 degrees of being noticed, I know how much value ther is there innately. So of course that makes me really happy that we as a company and a team have achieved that level of success and celebrity.”
As someone who became the face of the “Soulsborne” gaming subgenre (and its “Soulslike” imitators), Miyazaki again downplayed his contribution, attributing it to luck and coincidence.
“I don’t see us as originators or inventors of this genre. Having depth and learning in attempting an encounter again has existed in game design well before we came onto the scene,” Miyazaki said, noting that his and FromSoftware’s success in packaging this gameplay and the timing of releasing it granted them an inventor title. “It’s very humbling every time I hear someone say ‘Soulslike’ but really, we just happened to be at the right place at the right time in this larger movement or shift in game design and game appetite from consumers.”
Even this popularity has a dark side, he joked.
“On a more personal level, I know this means I can’t do anything too weird because I’m under a microscope,” Miyazaki said. “So if you leave me alone, I’ll tend to veer off course, so someone’s gonna have to help wrangle me.”
Bloodborne, FromSoft’s gothic horror game, came out in 2015 for the PS4…and hasn’t been remade or ported to another platform yet.
Lastly: Miyazaki’s favorite FromSoftware game
As the interview wrapped, I had one final pair of questions to ask: What was Miyazaki’s favorite FromSoftware game that he worked on, and what was his favorite from the studio as a whole across its history? In short, could he pick a favorite child?
“My child,” Miyazaki said in English, to laughter. And back in translation, “First Dark Souls and Bloodborne.”
“Of course, I love them all,” Miyazaki said quickly, as if his lesser-loved games would hear, before he elaborated thoughtfully. “On a very personal level, I would say, first Dark Souls and Bloodborne left a very big impression on me. As a company, Elden Ring put us in a completely different league, so that was a huge milestone for the company.”
“And if we expand it to all the FromSoftware games, including children not my own, I would say King’s Field II,” Miyazaki said, referring to the second game in the series that he’s on record as loving as a young gamer himself — and of which the first game he directed at FromSoftware, Demon’s Souls, served as a spiritual successor to.
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