Thrilling but not forbidding, Hidetaka Miyazaki’s forthcoming fantasy epic is like Dark Souls meets Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Before Hidetaka Miyazaki was given the job of salvaging his company’s embattled medieval fantasy game Demon’s Souls (2009), he was just another rank-and-file designer. For a child who grew up a voracious reader of sword-and-sorcery genre fiction, directing a grimy fantasy game was a dream. I find a great sense of poetic satisfaction in the fact that Miyazaki – now in his mid 40s and the president of developer FromSoftware, having propelled the company to global success with his demanding, distinctive, haunting and unforgettable games Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro – has been working with George RR Martin on a fantasy game. It feels like a full-circle moment for the boy who, when he couldn’t understand parts of the fantasy novels he brought home from his local library, used his own imagination to bridge the gaps.

Martin’s role on Elden Ring was completed some time ago – he workshopped the characters and their relationships, which Miyazaki and his team then integrated into the game. Aside from all the swords, Elden Ring bears almost no resemblance to Game of Thrones (it does have dragons, but if there is any complex politicking, skullduggery or mass-murder at weddings to be found here, it’s later in the game than the five hours I played). This game is more fantastical: your character can summon ethereal blades and lightning strikes, characters talk in reverent jargon about “sites of grace” and “the Tarnished”, and your horse is a corporeal ghost. After learning the basics of attacking and defending yourself, you emerge into a world called the Lands Between, where eerily glowing trees extend into the sky like mountains, bathing the forested land below in golden light.