When Elden Ring was released back in 2022, one thing was sure; it brought along the potential to expand faithfully on the ranks of the Dark Souls. Besides, one of the biggest USPs of the game was that it brought together the worldbuilding talents of the acclaimed fantasy author George R.R. Martin and the extraordinary vision of game director Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Novelist George R.R. Martin is best known for his series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire. These were later adapted into House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones TV shows which were highly acclaimed. Game of Thrones is an Emmy Award-winning HBO series.
Hidetaka Miyazaki spills the details about his first meeting with George R.R. Martin
During an interview with Edge Magazine ahead of Elden Ring’s launch, Hidetaka Miyazaki spilled some interesting details about how the great author contributed to the game. Miyazaki reveals how his first conversations with Martin, said,
“Yes, I have some good memories of those initial discussions. Not so much for the content but just the general feelings I had speaking with George Martin. He 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.”
Miyazaki said he knew from the moment he started talking to the author, his skill and his passion for the fantasy genre became evident to him. Miyazaki adds,
“There was a little bit of a generation gap between us, so I felt a bit apprehensive about going to these talks, but after a lot of these conversations, it was just like speaking with an old friend. And it just felt so fresh to have those conversations with someone who was so passionate about the same things, and to show that pure joy and sense of curiosity for these fantasy worlds.”
The game author revealed that it was something that really captured his interest throughout all of the conversations the two had. He adds that he was really thrilled to be working with the legendary author.
George R.R. Martin only worked on the backstory of Elden Ring
Hidetaka also revealed what the novelists helped in the making of Elden Ring and to what extent the novelist contributed. During the interview, he was asked about the creative brief he gave Martin before starting to work on the foundational parts of Elden Ring‘s backstory.
Miyazaki shared,
“Early on, we established a very good level of respect between each other, both in our personalities and the sort of work that we do. This was really important in establishing that foundation for the game because Mr. Martin respected the fact that we didn’t want him to write the game’s story or the in-game text. 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 inspiration we could possibly get from him.”
Thus, Miyazaki shared that they established the fact that Martin would be writing the foundation, the historical element of the game. He was expected to write something that took place long before the events of the game itself. He added,
“And this way he was able to much more freely flex those creative muscles and provide something that wasn’t restricted. We started off by giving him these very vague and broad themes and ideas for the mythos that I had swimming around in my head, along with what kind of games we typically make, and the sort of themes we’d like to explore in our games.”
Hence Miyazaki said it was all very loose and quite vague. Then Martin would come back to them with a lot of ideas, asking “How about this, this, and this?” He added that this kind of back-and-forth often started the exchange of ideas.
In another interview, Miyazaki shared how he did not want Martin to write the main story and use him only for Elden Ring’s mythology for two good reasons.
