“I absolutely suck at video games”: Hidetaka Miyazaki Broke His Own Tradition to Prepare for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
The director shares a lot in common with his player base.
Hidetaka Miyazaki seems to have hit yet another home run with the highly anticipated one and only expansion for his magnum opus, Elden Ring. Launched last week, Shadow of the Erdtree takes what made the base game so memorable and improves upon nearly every aspect that earned it the Game of the Year award.
From extremely difficult bosses, both main and optional, to the massive open world of the Land of Shadow, there is a lot to keep players occupied, marking the biggest ever DLC that FromSoftware has ever created. In fact, the expansion’s release held so much significance that even game director and studio president Miyazaki ended up breaking his own self-imposed tradition to prepare for it.
Hidetaka Miyazaki Discusses His Preparation for the Expansion
Throughout most of FromSoftware’s Soulslike release history, Miyazaki has been known for giving a lot of his own input into the titles, ensuring that each and every element is in the right place and is working as it should. “Leading up to the release of any game, I’ll be very hands-on playing it and getting as much time on it as much as possible,” stated the director in a recent interview, but that changes very quickly after the title actually launches.
It turns out that Miyazaki does “not want to touch” any of the projects he helms after they hit the shelves, simply because he does not want to come across any unfixable issues in them.
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However, as much as Shadow of the Erdtree means to the player base, it holds even higher regard in Miyazaki’s eyes, leading him to abandon that specific rule and head back to The Lands Between in preparation of the expansion. “I played through the main story of Elden Ring,” continued the FromSoftware boss, which is how so many other players also prepared for Shadow of the Erdtree before it released on June 21.
Relax, There Is No Shame in Using Summons to Play Elden Ring
There is a widely believed sentiment among the hardcore OG FromSoftware fanbase that using assistance like summons while playing Elden Ring is a sign of weakness and is not the right way to play the game.
Fortunately, the director himself has assured the community that there really is not any shame in using the help that the game provides to get through it, as Miyazaki used it as well. “I absolutely suck at video games,” admitted the FromSoftware president, “so my approach or play style was to use everything I have at my disposal, all the assistance, every scrap of aid that the game offers.”
Of course, being the creator of the title has its advantages because one knows exactly how things would play out, but solely “as a player,” Miyazaki says that the assists that Elden Ring provides helped him “more than anyone else.”
Shadow of the Erdtree includes many difficult bosses like Messmer, the Impaler, which prove to be quite challenging even with the help of summons, so players can rest easy knowing that it is completely natural to use whatever tools they have to progress through the expansion.
