Japanese designer and writer Hidetaka Miyazaki has successfully established himself as a legend in the gaming industry with his work in the Dark Souls series. Without a doubt, his video games have popularised the Soulslike genre among a wider audience. With his 2022 game, Elden Ring, he once again proved why he is one of the best. His approach to Elden Ring was a little different as he had to part ways from author George R. R. Martin’s mythos. This is because the author’s existing material served as the inspiration for Miyazaki’s Dark Souls series.
Elden Ring is labeled as one of the best Souslike games of all time. Since Miyazaki was no longer looking to take inspiration from Martin’s existing work, FromSoftware approached the author to do fresh worldbuilding for Elden Ring so Miyazaki could shape a story from it.
Hidetaka Miyazaki took George R. R. Martin’s help during the production of Elden Ring
In 2022, Hidetaka Miyazaki appeared for an interview with Edge Magazine and talked about his collaboration with his favorite author, George R. R. Martin, for his 2022 game, Elden Ring. Miyazaki explained (via GamesRadar),
“He [George R. R. Martin] actually knew about the Dark Souls games. He was aware of them and what they were about, so that made me happy. That sort of gave me a little bit of a boost – Mr Martin respected the fact that we didn’t want him to write the game’s story or the in-game text. Because we felt like that would actually limit his creative output, and if it was limited to something that was already a game or already a concept in this way, then it would limit the inspirations we could possibly get from him. So we established very early that he would be writing that foundation.”
Miyazaki explained that Martin only contributed to the setting and environment of the game, rather than the story. The author was given the creative freedom to write about events that occurred before the main narrative.
Hidetaka Miyazaki explained how he took a different approach to Elden Ring
Miyazaki didn’t want Martin to write the story of Elden Ring because he decided to create a fresh story himself. This was a different approach that Miyazaki hadn’t tried before, but with Martin’s support, Miyazaki was motivated,
“The biggest departure from the Dark Souls series is that I had this constant source of inspiration and impetus from George R. R. Martin and the mythos he had created. This probably had the largest impact on the game just because it was an approach I hadn’t used before. It allowed me to draw lines connecting the history in this new mythos and build up something very fresh. It provided a lot of motivation and a great, constant source of inspiration.”
Elden Ring was praised for its open world, gameplay systems, and setting. However, there were some complaints regarding the game’s technical performance. Nonetheless, it won several Game of the Year awards and became FromSoftware’s most commercially successful game. A DLC called Shadow of the Erdtree is planned to be released in June 2024.
