When I found out that FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki wasn't going to be able to talk to me at 3 pm as initially planned, I couldn't believe my luck. Good luck. His busy schedule meant our interview was pushed back by two hours, which meant that I had two more hours to play Shadow of the Erdtree. I spent a whole day sequestered in a media room in FromSoftware's shiny new offices in Tokyo, sitting in front of a PC and jumbo gaming monitor with the whole expansion tantalizingly open in front of me. I defeated its first two major bosses, reached a whole new area, and walked away feeling like I'd seen just a small portion of what this expansion has in store.
Shadow of the Erdtree may not be as big as Elden Ring, but it's almost certainly longer and deeper than most other videogames you'll play this year—I expect most players will spend dozens of hours trying to find everything hidden in the Land of Shadow. In our interview, Miyazaki explained that the expansion's map just had to be this big to recapture "that sense of discovery and that sense of wonder and exploration again."
As we talked more about Shadow of the Erdtree, I knew our cover story would be about more than just the bosses and dungeons of the new map FromSoftware has spent the last two years crafting. It would have to grapple with the significance of this expansion serving as the end of Elden Ring (at least for now)—and the culmination of the fantasy RPG journey FromSoftware has been on since its first game, King's Field, released 30 years ago this December.
"Making a game as large and ambitious as Elden Ring was obviously not without its troubles," Miyazaki said. "It was a challenging and long process. But it was also extremely fun, as a creator. I'd love to recreate that experience for myself, more than anything. Every time with these games there's things that go well and there's things that don't go so well. With Elden Ring it's the same. That two-way process, the communication with the players, has been really good this time, I feel—it's something we've managed to lock into a little better. So taking those bits that didn't go so well this time with Elden Ring and incorporating those and improving those in a future title—that's something I'm really excited for."
You'll be able to read the full feature on the website—including Miyazaki's thoughts on the evolving designs of FromSoftware's worlds, his "dream" fantasy RPG, and what kind of spicy food Elden Ring is—before the release of Shadow of the Erdtree on June 20. UK subscribers to PC Gamer magazine will also be getting their hands on the issue just before the expansion launches.
For now, check out more of our hands-on coverage of the expansion going live today:
- After 3 hours with Shadow of the Erdtree, I can already tell it's going to deliver on my favorite thing about FromSoftware's games: Exploration
- Hidetaka Miyazaki says Shadow of the Erdtree had to be big, because he wanted Elden Ring players 'to experience that sense of discovery and that sense of wonder' all over again
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's new martial arts moveset let me spin kick a boss so fast it felt like I was in Sekiro
