Legions of Elden Ring fans have been scouring The Lands Between in recent weeks ever since director Hidetaka Miyazaki let slip that something (secret, reference, or otherwise) remained to be unearthed. A newly discovered link between a shield in the base game and enemies in the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion has been found and may indeed be that missing link.
EXCLUSIVE: Hidetaka Miyazaki Answers All of Our Shadow of the Erdtree Questions | IGN Fan Fest 2024
21.02.2024 - 16:29 / ign.com / Hidetaka Miyazaki
Bandai Namco surprised fans all over this morning with the trailer for the hotly-anticipated follow up DLC for Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree. I was fortunate to not only catch an early glimpse of the trailer, which also confirmed the DLC's release date for June 21, but also to sit down and talk with the man himself, Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Over the course of the interview we discuss the details of Shadow of the Erdtree, some of Elden Ring's bolder choices, his thoughts on potentially taking a step back from the director role in the future, and the state of the industry and how it relates to FromSoftware.
Read on for the full interview below, and make sure to check down our complete breakdown of the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer!
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Can you set the stage for us with Shadow of the Erdtree? Where is it taking place? And can you speak kind of generally regarding what the story is going to be about?
Hidetaka Miyazaki, Director: First of all, the setting of Shadow of the Erdtree is a brand new land. It's a brand new map separate from the Lands Between. It is a land that is overshadowed by the particular Shadow of the Erdtree as opposed to the Erdtree in the Lands Between. And it takes place, again, on an entirely separate, physically separate map. So it will involve a warp of sorts to get there.
In terms of setting and themes, it technically occupies the same space as the Lands Between, the same universe. But due to something story related that we won't reveal today, this has become physically disconnected, and you'll travel to the Shadow of the Erdtree land as a separate place.
So this Land of Shadow itself is a place the player will visit to walk in the steps of Miquella. Miquella is a key part of the story this time, perhaps as guessed by many players who saw the art that was released previously. That is in fact Miquella, and it is he who traveled to the Land of Shadow and it's the players who will be tracing his path and following in his footsteps, trying to see what he's going to do there. Another axis of the story is Queen Marika and what she did in the Land of Shadow, and what led Miquella to follow her there.
Speaking of this new land that we're traveling to, how is it structured? Is it structured in very much the same way as the Lands Between, where there are legacy dungeons and minor dungeons? Can you describe a little bit about how the world is going to be compared to the base game?
Miyazaki: Yes. We think players can expect a similar experience to what they had with the base game. This is going to be structured in a similar way, as you said, with open field maps, with large scale legacy dungeons, and with small to medium scale
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