'I absolutely suck at video games': Hidetaka Miyazaki discusses how he prepped for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

GamesRPG’I absolutely suck at video games': Hidetaka Miyazaki discusses how he prepped for Elden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Fromsoft)

Hidetaka Miyazaki, president of Fromsoftware.

It’s safe to say thatElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreewas one of the most anticipated games for 2024, with long time souls fans having waited a couple of years since the base game’s release, and new players desperately trying tospeedrun to Mohgso they’d be ready to dive straight in. But it seems like we weren’t the only ones prepping, as director Hidetaka Miyazaki also had a prerelease routine that he’s kindly shared.

And while the vast majority of players don’t really care how anyone else approachesElden Ringor its DLC, it really is nice to hear that Miyazaki has a similar approach. It’s pretty vindicating, actually.

But apparently, Miyazaki won’t spend too much time with a new game: “After the release, I tend to not want to touch it because I know I’m going to either find things that I left on the table or issues that will bug me. And once I become a player, I’m powerless to do anything significant to change it. So once a game is out in the wild, I tend to not play.”

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree gameplay showing stats, moveset, and location of the Starr Lined Sword, my favorite new weapon in the DLC

There haven’t been too many issues with Shadow of the Erdtree so far, apart froma micro-stutter (which wasn’t always that micro)that plagued a few systems. Otherwise, all the patches thatFromSoftwarehas released so far have addressed the few graphics issues, as well asslightly buffing the playerto try and accommodate the difficulty spike.

Despitecontinuing to pound players into the dirtwith its difficulty level, the anticipation for Shadow of the Erdtree was clearly not misplaced. Reaching a peak ofover 700,000 concurrent players on Steamafter the DLC release, which was just 200,000 shy of its all-time record set on Elden Ring’s release back in 2022, saying it’s been successful is a bit of an understatement. But while success is certainly welcome at FromSoftware, Miyazaki also discusses where there’s room to fail.

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“Budgets, scale, scope, everything has grown to a point where room for failure isn’t tolerated as much as I think it was in the past,” Miyazaki says. “FromSoftware has its own way of hedging risks, so to speak, in that most of our projects have a partner who is financing the project … From a business management perspective, we’re not betting everything on any one single project. At the same time, you have to find the right project to allow for failure: whether it’s smaller in scope or scale, or it’s a small module within something bigger, there needs to be room for that.”

Erdtree map fragments: Uncover the Land of ShadowScadutree fragments: How to level up in ErdtreeErdtree bosses: A full hit list for the DLCLeda quest: Track the Erdtree main questSir Ansbach quest: Help the former servant of MohgHornsent quest: Complete the quest for vengeance

Erdtree map fragmentsScadutree fragmentsErdtree bossesLeda questSir Ansbach questHornsent quest

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PRODUCTSElden RingElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

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