Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is filled with numerous challenges that are sure to test your mettle. Perhaps none are as frustrating as a certain foe, whom you’ll meet at the end of your journey. Here’s our guide on how to beat the final boss in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Naturally, this article contains major spoilers.

How to beat the final boss in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree – Promised Consort Radahn guide

The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree final boss is General Radahn, your old buddy from when you had migraines after spending hours in Caelid. Now, though, he’s called Promised Consort Radahn, as he’s revealed to be Miquella’s most loyal companion. You’ll battle him in a legacy dungeon called Enir-Ilim, which you’ll gain access to upon burning the Sealing Tree.

There are some similarities between Mr. Starscourge and Mr. Promised Consort, most notably the use of massive dual greatswords and a penchant for dive-bombing you like a meteor. The key difference, now, is that the fight takes place in a smaller arena and not a desert island, so don’t worry about Radahn galloping around on a tiny horse.

Preparing for the Promised Consort Radahn boss fight

Make no mistake, the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Promised Consort Radahn boss battle is one of the hardest in the entire game (not just the DLC). We feel that he’s more difficult than Malenia. As such, you need to be well-prepared. We suggest the following:

• Boost your character’s capabilities and summons by collecting more Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes. We defeated the final boss when our Shadow Realm Blessings were at level 17 and level 9, respectively.
• Speaking of summons, a single summon like the Mimic Tear or Banished Knight Oleg will not be enough. You might need help from NPC allies. You can call on both Thiollier and Ansbach if you complete their quests. We’ve got all the details for you in our Thiollier quest guide and Ansbach quest guide.
• Golden Braid talisman – You can find this in the Shaman Village once you access the secret northeast area (Scaduview). It boosts holy damage resistance by the utmost.
• Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +2 – Found in Crumblign Farum Azula in the base game. This helps mitigate physical damage.
• Armors with high resistance to holy damage.
• For those who prefer bleed builds, the new Red Bear’s Claw is a viable option. It comes from the Northern Nameless Mausoleum.
• Base game options, such as Blasphemous Blade and Dark Moon Greatsword, are still viable. You can also choose the Staff of Loss or other spellcasting weapons.
• The ground in the arena has a bright color. You should have as few runes as possible in case of deaths. It’s going to be hard to see the marker where you dropped your runes, and you don’t want to run around looking for your XP/currency.
• Lastly, you’ll want to have high Vigor (at least 60). You’ll need all the HP you can get.

Phase 1: Promised Consort Radahn

What makes Promised Consort Radahn so dangerous is that his combo sequences have multiple swings (sometimes up to five or six strikes), and these have rather fast animation speeds. He also has the following abilities during the first phase of the encounter:

• Meteor Dive – Radahn will always start the encounter by jumping into the air and dive-bombing your location. Do not spend these first few seconds casting or summoning. Just dodge the initial dive-bomb to be safe.
• Meteor Rain – Radahn will jump and spawn half a dozen rocks in mid-air. These will crash one by one at your location.
• Gravity Pull – The boss will pull you if you’re too far away, followed by a stomp that causes a quake. Dodge the eruption as it’s about to occur.
• Melee combos – Ideally, you should dodge toward the boss instead of sideways or backwards. His swings have follow-ups that can reach you even if you avoid the first few blows.

Phase 2: Radahn Consort of Miquella

The second phase against Promised Consort Radahn in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is where things get extremely hectic. At roughly 60% HP, a cutscene will play and Miquella will make an appearance. He’ll then piggyback off Radahn, like a creepy angelic backpack of sorts, causing Radahn’s attacks to be infused with holy damage. This is why it’s important to boost your holy resistance as much as possible, since the boss’ melee attacks are usually followed by holy-based area-of-effect (AoE) damage.

Likewise, Radahn will retain several abilities from the first phase, and you need to watch out for some new tricks such as:

• Holy Bombardment – The second phase will always begin with Radahn casting a spell that causes multiple beams to strike your location. Remove lock-on immediately and sprint to the side until the beams are gone.
• Lightspeed Slash – Radahn will start flashing, then he’ll rush and slice you multiple times.
• Heavenly Eruption – When the ground starts to glow, a massive eruption is about to occur. This will likely deplete a chunk of your HP. You can either block to help mitigate the damage, or sprint behind the boss since this is a frontal AoE spell.
• Holy Hug – When Radahn pulls back, he’s about to run and grab you in a bear hug. You don’t actually take damage from this move, as Miquella just goads you into giving up. However, if you get hugged for a second time, your character will die because their “heart was stolen.”

Promised Consort Radahn Remembrance and rewards

Having as many summoned allies as possible certainly helps in the battle against Promised Consort Radahn in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Your spirit ash summon and NPC allies can distract Radahn and take aggro for a few seconds, giving you enough breathing room. It’s also beneficial for those who like to cast spells from afar or those who want to do a few strikes to apply bleeding.

If you succeed in defeating the boss, then you’ll receive the Remembrance of a God and a Lord, which can be exchanged for the following:

Option 1: Greatsword of Radahn (Lord)

• Type: Colossal Sword
• Effect/description: Promised Consort
• Stat scaling: Str D, Dex D, Int E
• Stat requirements: Str 22, Dex 18, and Fai 12

Option 2: Greatsword of Radahn (Light)

• Type: Colossal Sword
• Effect/description: Lightspeed Slash
• Stat scaling: Str D, Dex D, and Int E
• Stat requirements: Str 38, Dex 12, and Int 15

Option 3: Light of Miquella

• Type: Incantation
• Effect/description: Annihilates foes with a pillar of light.
• Stat requirement: Fai 72
• FP cost: 48

There are also a couple of other notable goodies:

• Let Us Go Together emote – Obtained after defeating the boss or if your character perishes to the Holy Hug.
• Circlet of Light – Obtained after interacting with the Memory Orb (ending cutscene).
• NPC rewards – You can pick up rewards from the NPC allies whose quests you completed.

That does it for our guide on how to beat the final boss in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. If you’d like to know about other rewards, you can take a look at our boss Remembrances guide.

First launched on Nintendo 3DS, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is making the jump to Nintendo Switch on June 27. The Switch version, dubbed Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, enhances the charming adventure with refreshed graphics and quality-of-life gameplay updates that bring the game closer to its sequel, Luigi’s Mansion 3, while keeping the 3DS original’s content intact–including all the same puzzles, enemies, and even the ScareScraper multiplayer mode. Preorders for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD are available now.

Of course, Luigi’s Mansion 2 isn’t the only game in the series available on Nintendo Switch. Luigi’s Mansion 3 launched for the system back in 2019, and is considered by many the best game in the series. If you haven’t played Luigi’s Mansion 3 yet either, you can grab the physical edition at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop, or Target.

The GOG Summer Sale is now live, offering huge discounts on hundreds of PC games. Like all GOG sales, there are deals on titles from throughout the platform’s history, from time-tested classics up to the latest new releases–and in some cases, you can pick up some all-time amazing games for just a couple dollars.

For example, you can snag the enhanced editions of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II, which are available for just $5 and $3, respectively. Normally, both classic CRPGs go for $20, so these are pretty steep discounts. If that isn’t enough to sate your CRPG thirst, you can also grab Divinity: Original Sin 2 for $13.49 (normally $45), Dragon Age: Origins for $3.19 (normally $20), or Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire – Obsidian Edition for $15 (was $60).

Some other low-priced deals include Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair: Deluxe Edition for $4.75 (normally $48), SteamWorld Heist for $1.49 (was $15), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Digital Deluxe Edition for $6.74 (was $45). The are also a few multi-game collections on super-sale, including the Yakuza Complete Series bundle that includes seven games–Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, Kiwami 2, the remastered versions of Yakuza 3 through 5, and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life–all for just $50.39, which is over 50% off the collection’s usual $112 price. There’s also the Metro Franchise Bundle that includes all four games in the atmospheric FPS series for just $9.51 (normally $60).

Those are just a small selection of the many PC game deals available during GOG’s Summer Sale. You can check out a list of more of our favorite deals below, or head over to GOG to browse the full catalog.

The GOG Summer Sale runs until July 10, so you have just over a week left to take advantage of these deals before they’re gone.

GOG Summer Sale Deals

This standard physical edition of Slay the Princess is just $45. It’s available for Switch and PS5 and is available at Amazon and Best Buy. The Pristine Cut includes not just the standard game that earned rave reviews, but also three new chapters, new Princesses, and plenty of other updates. So even if you’ve played the original, there’s plenty more to enjoy with this definitive edition. Along with the game, you’ll also get interior case art, a soundtrack download card, and mirror sticker sheet.

Like the original video games, Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game has players guide Chocobo through a multi-floor dungeon that changes every time you play. As you explore, you’ll encounter traps, collect items, battle iconic Final Fantasy monsters, and–if you survive long enough–ultimately face off against the final boss, Behemoth.

The game is designed for 1-4 players, who work together to get Chocobo through the dungeon. The box includes Chocobo and Reaper figures, a rulebook, three double-sided dungeon boards, a boss tile board, 100 playing cards, and a collection of counters and tokens.

We’ve heard a lot about the survival aspect of Dune: Awakening–such as the way you’ll need to conserve water, stay out of the baking Arrakis sun, and carefully avoid ever-present sandworms. While it seems that staying alive on the least hospitable planet in the universe will take up a lot of your attention, the other part of Dune: Awakening is a slate of MMO elements, including the way you’ll tangle with other players who are also doing their best to survive.

Developer Fancom gave a hands-off demonstration of Dune: Awakening during Summer Game Fest 2024’s Play Days event, giving a quick new look at the survival MMO and particularly showing off a bit of its moment-to-moment gameplay. While we didn’t get to play the game ourselves, we did see it being played, which gave a sense of the fact that while you’re completing quests and keeping yourself alive, there will be times when you’ve got to contend with other players who might want what you have.

The demo picked up right after the player had cleared out an underground ecology lab, one of the locations that serves as Dune: Awakening’s equivalent to a dungeon. We were told that this character was in about the midgame, around 60 hours in, having gone beyond basic survival to gather and craft elements like a suspensor belt–a special bit of levitation technology that allowed them to make very high jumps and to float down from high locations unscathed–and an ornithopter, a flying vehicle for getting around. Leaving the dungeon, the player jumped right into their ornithopter, lifted it up, and transitioned out of the dungeon and out into the desert at large.

This is the Hagga Basin, which looks like it’ll be a main focus of much of Dune: Awakening, at least early on. As social and economic director Matt Woodward explained during the demo, the location supports around 40 players in an instance, and is made up of a variety of different locations. There are places like the lab, expanses of desert, and villages or outposts you can visit. The ornithopter did a pass over a few different parts of the location, including the open desert, where we landed for a quick look around.

In Frank Herbert’s novel, the desert isn’t uniform–the sand can sometimes compress to conduct sound extremely well, known as drum sand, and we also saw a bubbling area where subsurface liquid created quicksand. The player used the suspensor belt to jump free of the quicksand before sinking, but as all Dune fans know, messing around with that technology attracts the worm–which showed up a few seconds later. It was back to the ornithopter to avoid being eaten. Sandworms are a big hazard in Dune: Awakening, because while you retain your gear if you’re killed by other means, anything on you when you’re eaten by a sandworm (along with vehicles or anything else that gets consumed) is gone forever.

Next, the demo took us to a non-combat zone: a Harkonnen base. In this playthrough, the player had sided with the Harkonnen faction, making them allies to the great house but enemies with anyone loyal to the Atreides, the house of Dune’s usual protagonists. The base, Woodward said, was created using the same building system that Dune: Awakening makes available to characters, with only a few developer-specific pieces. The gist is that you’ll be able to construct your own bases and dwellings at the same level of quality as the developers, if you want.

The Harkonnen base was a spot where the player could pick up quests or talk to NPCs if they wanted to. This is also the kind of place where you can talk to trainer characters who can unlock new abilities for your character. You choose a role at the start of the game, like being a human computer called a Mentat, a swordmaster, or a Bene Gesserit who can deploy special abilities like the mind-controlling Voice. But you’re not limited to just the abilities and skill trees you get when you choose your starting conditions. In the Harkonnen base, the demo showed us the Mentat trainer, who can help you start unlocking Mentat abilities for your character so you can mix and match how you play.

Leaving the Harkonnen base by grabbing another vehicle, a land-based buggy, we headed to a new location: a crashed spaceship. The ship had smashed through the surface of Arrakis and was located deep in a gorge. It was full of valuable stuff, so the Harkonnens and the Atreides had each set up a base at one end of the gorge, hoping to protect the wreck itself from the other faction. That had resulted in something of a stalemate between the two.

The gorge was a good demonstration of the way locations are laid out in Dune: Awakening. The Harkonnen base is a non-combat area, essentially a social location. Outside of it, in the gorge, is a “Limited Warfare” area, which consists of PvE gameplay, where you’ll take down enemy soldiers and NPCs. The shipwreck itself, however, is a “War of Assassins” area, named after the larger conflict between the Atreides and the Harkonnen–a full PvP zone.

The reason for that is because the shipwreck contains valuable, one-of-a-kind schematics you can use to create new gear. Venturing into the ship, your goal is to find that schematic and leave with it. In this case, it allowed the crafting of a new, powerful rifle, but since there’s only one schematic in the shipwreck at a time, in order to liberate it for yourself, you’ll have to deal with anyone else who’s also trying to take it. The demo obviously didn’t have anyone else contending for that schematic, but in the live game, heading into locations like this will be a risk.

Woodward explained that, when you get the schematic out of the ship and can craft the item, you’ll get precisely one of them. If you want another rifle, you’ll have to repeat the process of finding the schematic and getting it home safely. That gives you some economic power, though, allowing you to sell the schematic or the rifle to other players and charging the kind of price that a tough-to-get item like that should command.

The playthrough of the demo ended after leaving the crashed ship, but Woodward gave a little more context of just how large we can expect Dune: Awakening to be. The Hagga Basin, he said, is comparable to the size of Conan: Exile’s map, about 64 square kilometers. Dune: Awakening will also have social locations like the capital city of Arrakeen, and the Harkonnen town Harko Village. Leaving the Hagga Basin by ornithopter takes you to an overworld map that lets you travel between major locales.

And then there’s the deep desert–the high-level PvP area where you’re seemingly going to put a lot of effort. Forming groups and guilds, you’ll head into the deep desert to harvest spice, search labs, and find wrecked ships, among other things. Just like in the wrecked ship, you’ll potentially fight other players as you try to claim unique schematics in the deep desert each week. Woodward said that the deep desert is the size of three of the 8-kilometer by 8-kilometer Hagga Basin map. Each week, a Coriolis Storm will reset the whole area, so not only are you going to be revisiting it over and over, but it’s going to be a huge area that will take a while to explore after each sweep.

Though the demo only lasted a few minutes, it still gave an interesting new take on Dune: Awakening, and in particular, how the game’s survival and MMO elements are going to work and meld together. There’s still a lot of the game we need to see in action, and the demo only gave quick looks at things like actually exploring and interacting with the desert, or engaging in combat–which seems like it can be pretty different from one player to the next, depending on what path you decide to take. But the ideas of questing, surviving, and fighting other players for cool, finite resources all sound like intense and fun additions to Dune: Awakening and great uses of the Dune setting. We’ll have to keep waiting to see even more, but what Funcom has shown so far looks promising.

The Legend of Zelda fans will finally get to play as Zelda herself in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. The highly anticipated new entry in the series is arriving on September 26. Fans who watched this week’s Nintendo Direct may have recognized the game’s art style. Echoes of Wisdom brings back the colorful visual aesthetic of the 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening. If you haven’t played the stellar remake yet, now’s a great time to pick it up. Walmart is selling Link’s Awakening for $40, down from $60, for a limited time.

Skyline Valley is at the center of the 17th season in Fallout 76. It features a new map region to explore, fresh cosmetics, weapons, gear, and more. However, what players will spend most of their time doing in Skyline Valley is completing the Vault 63 quest.

Vault 63 was previously locked in Fallout 76 until the Skyline Valley update came along. Now, players can complete a questline to find out the location of the vault and meet the residents inside. Below, you can see exactly how to start the Vault 63 questline in Fallout 76.

Beginning the Vault 63 Questline in Fallout 76

First and foremost, there is one primary requirement you need to meet before you’re even able to begin the questline associated with Skyline Valley. You need to be level 25 before you can receive the quest that leads to Vault 63 in Fallout 76. If you don’t meet the level threshold, then you won’t be able to accept or complete the Vault 63 questline. For those of you who are under level 25, I suggest playing through the main story, completing side quests, and participating in Public Events to gain XP rapidly.

Now, if you are level 25 or above, all you have to do is check the Data section of your Pip-Boy. Here, you should see a new quest called “An Unlikely Invitation,” which is the first mission in the Vault 63 questline. The quest automatically appears for all players above level 25 after downloading the Skyline Valley update in Fallout 76. If you view the steps for An Unlikely Invitation, you’ll see that you have to listen to the Vault-Tec Radio Broadcast to get your next task.

You can head over to the Radio tab in your Pip-Boy and select the Vault-Tec Broadcast from the list of available options. Listen to the speaker on the radio and then make sure An Unlikely Invitation is tracked from the Data tab. Once you start tracking the quest and have listened to the broadcast, you’ll get a new quest marker on your map. This officially marks the start of the Vault 63 questline in Fallout 76.

The quest takes you to locations all over the map to start but then begins to hone in on Skyline Valley. After an hour or two, you’ll reach the true entrance to Vault 63 and start to uncover the mystery behind Skyline Valley and the Lost enemies that populate the region. The questline takes roughly 15-20 hours to complete depending on how much time you take finishing all the quests. There are 12 total quests to complete, with “The Calm Before” quest taking place after you complete An Unlikely Invitation.

You can also check out everything the Skyline Valley update introduced to Fallout 76 in our previous guide.

The launch of Shadow of the Erdtree brings a new and exciting journey for From Software to its end. Elden Ring, released two years ago, was the studio’s first venture into the open-world genre, a massive undertaking full of complex challenges even for studios that have a long history of making them, let alone one taking its first crack at it.

For From Software and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki, it was an opportunity to leverage years of experience making Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and other titles to give players a game that retains the sense of adventure and challenge the studio is known for, while also offering the freedom to explore a vast landscape full of possibilities. Shadow of the Erdtree, the first and only DLC of Elden Ring, is the completion of that vision.

With Shadow of the Erdtree on the cusp of release, GameSpot spoke to Miyazaki-san about this journey and the road to making Elden Ring happen, as well as what he learned from the experience, what he envisions his next projects being, and the future of From Software as a whole.

GameSpot: How does this moment feel, given that it’s essentially the end of a big journey for Elden Ring? What does it feel like for you and the team; what’s your state of mind?

Hidetaka Miyazaki: A few things. First, Elden Ring, for us, we’ve never made a game of this caliber and scope before, so it’s an experience that I think myself and the entire team has not experienced both in terms of volume as well as the success itself. Elden Ring is, in terms of scope, just so much bigger than anything we’ve worked on in the past. I think it really helped grow and nurture a lot of our in-house talent as From Software. So the timing was right and we knew we wanted to take on a new challenge. Through developing Elden Ring, I think a lot of our talent, including directors who are not me or game designers, game planners who are not the core team that usually designs games within From Software [benefitted], it really served as a kind of foundation for us to build upon and grow into the next stage as a company.

I believe that will translate into being able to show the world the so-called new From Software, as well as the types of games that we will be developing in the future.

To add to that, I think developing this game was genuinely just fun for me and the whole team. Being able to build out a world and game of this scope, as well as collaborating with George R.R. Martin, I think is just one of those experiences you don’t get to have every day. So in terms of the unique joy in myself and the staff, I think that really helped us grow and hopefully someday we can apply all of these learnings and experiences to what we develop next, whatever that new challenge ends up becoming for the company.

And again, the enormous success that Elden Ring experienced, of course we’re very, very thankful to the fans who have supported the game. I think that it is that support that will enable us to take on whatever next challenge it is we want to as a company. So I want to give out a heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s supported the franchise so far.

Open-world games are a big challenge to make and it takes a lot out of a studio to do them. Do you now see this is the baseline for future games and open worlds being the kind of core of [From Software’s] games going forward? Or do you hope to return to something a little more linear and focused in the way that games are made?

I wouldn’t necessarily say that open world is going to become the new base or foundation or standard of the company. As I kind of hinted in earlier responses, we have a lot of game directors and designers who are growing, so we’d love to keep an open mind in terms of the types of games that we develop. So, of course, I can’t really say anything at this exact moment, but perhaps when you see future announcements from From Software you’ll look back at this point and think, “Ah, that’s what he meant.”

Do you remember how it was to make the decision to go open-world? Having made multiple Dark Souls games, Bloodborne, and Sekiro did you feel confident and capable or was there still a sense of nervousness about pulling it off?

Well, there were a couple of things that we had going for us. As you mentioned, having built up our experience and team with Dark Souls, I think that foundation gave us a certain amount of confidence. Likewise, seeing the team grow also gave us a different type of confidence that it was achievable. If you asked me if we were 100% sure we could pull it off, the answer would not have been yes at the time, but it did feel like there was a path to achieving what we set out to do. And of course, once we were on that journey, we realized how naive we were.

But of course everything leading up to Elden Ring has been built within the company brick-by-brick, if you will. And what we were setting out to achieve with Elden Ring we knew was an extension of what we’ve built up. So instead of just doing what we already know, we’ve always wanted to push the status quo and kind of extend ourselves a little bit, which was what helped create Elden Ring.

Do you remember what the mission statement or the objective was for this game? What is it that you wanted to have achieved and do you think that you have done so?

I think in the very, very early stages of Elden Ring’s proposal, a lot of the core concepts came down to giving players this adventurous feel, this very open-world freedom, if you will, and adjusting the difficulty to match that freedom that we’re giving players. That was a huge mission statement or thematic element we wanted to achieve with the game.

I think to a degree we have achieved that. But like all the games that we release at From Software, nothing is ever perfect. So there were certainly learnings from this experience. There were certainly some failures and shortcomings. But if I had the chance to redo this, I think I might do something differently but I would like the chance to revisit a lot of the themes that we set out to achieve.

You make these worlds that are vicious to you to begin with; they make you feel like you don’t belong there, and by the end of it you have conquered it. But for certain people that keep coming back it starts feeling like home–counter to the design intent. How does it make you feel knowing that there are people out there who come to this world that you designed to push them away because it makes them feel good? I often return to the games and I’m in these worlds because they make me feel capable and happy.

I think that some of that was part of the design, it was designed as intended. And I think what you’re referring to is the sort of severity of the world and how brutal it can be, which oftentimes translates to the difficulty and learning curve. But by conquering a lot of those challenges, players will be able to call that place, that world, their home like, “I’ve conquered it.” And I think there is certainly a sense of enjoyment that people can feel from it. One of the core themes of Elden Ring is this sense of achievement and perhaps what you just described is a small part of that sense of achievement, when these worlds start to feel like your home. The fact that you brought that up of course makes me really, really happy because it was working as intended.

I like to go back and fight Malenia when I need a little confidence boost, and it was the same way with Sekiro and Genichiro.

When you’re having challenges in your life or need a confidence boost, the fact that you turn to Sekiro and Elden Ring I think shows a lot of courage [laughs]. I don’t know if I would say a lot of that was an intended core part of the game design itself, but whether it’s Elden Ring, Sekiro, Dark Souls, there is certainly that sense of achievement that I mentioned earlier of overcoming a challenge, and it makes sense how that would translate to a boost in confidence.

Our world, the real world, has a lot of challenges and there are a lot of obstacles that we face every day, and some of these obstacles are not always achievable or conquerable. However, I think there is something innately comforting in knowing that within this realm of video games, it is conquerable and achievable. So if you face it head-on and interpret what’s happening on the screen and the inputs, you can again feel that sense of achievement. So I do think about that sometimes, how through this interactive medium of video games we can have that communication.

Each new release from the studio is a chance for it to evolve but usually what we hear is, “From Software is the team that makes hard games.” What is your interpretation of your identity now and how do you see From Software?

It would be hard to describe the next chapter of From Software in one word but if I had to, I think it would come down to value and how we create this value. The words that you use to describe it, fantasy, world setting, difficulty, sense of achievement, that perhaps I think is more closely tied to my own set of values than the company itself. These new directors and game designers that are up-and-coming, our in-house talent, may not share those exact same values. I don’t want to say something right now and commit to the future direction of From Software and bind what they’re able to do.

But if you look at it more broadly, I think it all comes down to creating and providing that value to gamers and being able to do that at 100%. So, making sure the environment is conducive to that type of thinking, and [creating] a path to be able to achieve that is to me what I think as the president and how I feel about the future of the company. So in reality it’s a very simple company, I would say.

For the immediate future, I think how fans have responded to our games, and I daresay the amount of trust they’ve placed in us as a brand, has provided us with this opportunity to be able to show different types of value that we can add. So I think our job at this point is to not betray that trust and expectation.

On an individual level, however, the sense of overcoming challenges, and the dark fantasy world setting is something I will always have, but I don’t necessarily think that will always be the direction of the company because others might feel differently.

It feels that diversity of games is starting to come out. I’ve never seen as many people excited about Armored Core and it’s obviously because of that trust. That must make you feel very confident in where you’re going and the team.

That there are so many Armored Core players tells me that perhaps our direction or our process wasn’t necessarily wrong, and we’re on the right track. So it’s certainly a confidence boost. But more so than that, I am very thankful for the fans who have responded and embraced that trust that we’ve built together. So I understand Armored Core was never a huge franchise adopted by many players, but seeing the current state of the franchise I think makes us know that we’re on the right path. And I think the same can be said for me as well as the company as a whole.

Last time we spoke you had moved to a leadership position and one of the things that you talked about was helping to serve that function but also staying in the thick of creating games. Having now created the biggest game you’ve made, how is that balance going?

With respect to the balance between being the president versus being a game director, I would say that hasn’t changed from our last conversation. And if I had to give it a ratio of president to game director, I would say it would be about one to nine in terms of ratio. So that hasn’t changed. What makes that possible, I would say, is on the more management or the president side of the business I have a really good team who’s able to support it.

And what it comes down to is me in a leadership position on the executive side, I want to focus on the things that only I am able to do, and I think that’s what I should be doing. And what that comes down to is keeping the vision for the company as well as passing judgment on if any one goal is being achieved and how we set those metrics. So the vision is setting the goal where the company should point where we should steer the ship and the judgment part is determining what’s needed, including the talent, the resources we’re deploying, how we evaluate and interpret talent and these resources, and how they’re being applied to our goal. To me, that’s something only I can do and the biggest contribution I can provide in the leadership role. The rest of the management really comes down to having such a great team.

What’s enabling us to do that is, I think going back to the previous response, the simplicity of how From Software is set up and how From Software paints its vision. We’re going to make good games and keep that entire mechanism and machine sustainable so we can continue to make good games. It’s that simplicity of directing everything towards value that allows me to spend, one part, doing president and, nine parts, being a game director. So if that balance and that overall vision start to point in a different direction, perhaps I’m not best suited for that role anymore.

Going from memory here, but I believe this is the longest period you have had between releasing a core game and then a DLC. What was it like spending this much time on a DLC and what challenges did you find that were new compared to your previous games?

You are correct in that this is the longest period between a base game and its DLC, however, that was not the intent per se and more of a byproduct as we embarked on this journey of developing it. If you ask why, it simply comes down to the sheer volume of content that is in the DLC, which doesn’t compare with others, but of course it translates into more time and more resources being applied to it. And if you ask why Elden Ring’s DLC has so much more volume, for me it comes down to the gameplay of Elden Ring and how the game itself is structured.

At its core, Elden Ring is about adventure, exploration of the unknown. and the sense of freedom that players get when playing Elden Ring. To make sure the DLC lives up to those core themes or core concepts, it necessitated creating a massive volume and the scale, so that we’re not losing sight and the players aren’t disappointed in those elements. So I think it was a necessity given the game design and gameplay of Elden Ring that the DLC took two years.

How difficult is it to stay the course in your ideas when in that period, you see the people who love these games, the fans talking so much about what the game is, what they hope the next part of it is going to be? Are you tempted to react?

I would say it’s the hybrid, but first and foremost, as a foundation, there is the original vision of what we set out to achieve with this DLC. And there is a strong idea of the type of experience we want players to have. And that being said, with the base game out in the wild, there are a lot of comments and feedback that users have. We tap into that as more of a means to adjust the game or tweak the balance or brush up the experience. But I would say there is certainly a foundation of what we are trying to do before user reactions or comments come into play.

And that’s something that is not just limited to this DLC. That same philosophy applies to everything that we do at From Software. There is always a vision or a concept of what we want to do and that comes from within the creators. We always have one eye on what the users and audiences are saying, so we can feed that back into the design or the experience and making sure we’re not completely ignoring reactions. That’s also combined with the experience the studio has built over the years as well, which is a very strong asset.

A big part of how people experience the game is how they interpret it, but for you, what was the theme you wanted to pursue in the DLC?

Of course, there are certainly themes that I have and themes that I hope audiences will experience. That can be said for Shadow of Erdtree as well as past games I’ve made, or even the base Elden Ring game. That being said, I don’t think it would be fair for me to explain that to players or tell that to players. The video game is supposed to be experienced, and I think that personal experience and interpretation is what’s most important. So whether it’s before or after the game is accessible to wider audiences, myself coming in and saying, “Well, actually this was the theme” would really take away or distract from the experience and that interpretation each individual player has built around their own adventure. On a more personal level, I think me trying to take these ideas and themes that I have and put them into words and say them out loud is, on a very simple level, embarrassing.

How do you construct a story by saying less and has it become easier over the years?

I don’t know if I would necessarily say it’s difficult to construct it in this way and perhaps this is, I don’t know if it’s myself or From Software as a brand, but by having these denser and lighter moments, we try to keep everything rather simple. In the case of Elden Ring, the so-called gaps that you mentioned come from the gameplay of us wanting to encourage people to explore and have their own adventure. And you yourself said, once you understand this and can feel this, you make the world your own in some way and it feels closer. Enabling players to feel that informed a lot of our storytelling style.

And this act of players trying to understand and trying to go deeper into this world is a huge, fun point, or value-add that Elden Ring provides. And it’s also something that I myself really enjoy, this idea of understanding and unboxing this world is a very attractive way to immerse oneself. So perhaps it is unique compared to a lot of other more setting-heavy games, but I find that enjoyable so it translates into the games as well.

Do you watch other people or the fans theorize or the videos they make or are you content with letting that happen outside of your vision?

I watch them. Of course, I can’t watch all of them, but I do like to watch them and I actually enjoy that process. I think it’s quite fun to see how people piece together their own theories or working theories based on a lot of fragmented information that the game provides. Some can be derived from hints in the game, others are completely theorized. But regardless, for me, I find it quite enjoyable to see the different interpretations that the fans and audiences have.

I think it’s a very desirable mechanic and the game was designed that way for people to be able to fill in those gaps. So, regardless of whether they’re correct or maybe not, it doesn’t change the way I watch these videos. I like to see it on a very objective level and say, “Oh, that’s an interesting way to piece together all these fragments.” So that’s how I interact with that type of user-generated content.

Taking that ethos and applying it to ending your DLC, how do you make it feel like a conclusion instead of an end to the world. Do you even want to leave it open to say, “We’ve got more to do in the future”?

Concerning Shadow of Erdtree, that’s something where I very strongly wanted to make sure audiences feel Miquella’s ending. And there of course might be room for interpretation in there, but the overall feel is a definitive closure to his arc. So if Shadow of Erdtree is Miquella’s story, he has his conclusive endpoint.

One of the things I really like is that your games always treat the player character as insignificant. You are a Tarnished and everyone’s constantly telling you that you are worthless. Traditionally people want their characters to feel special, a chosen one, or a savior. Where does that come from?

The game world is a quite severe and vicious place, including the very strong enemies. And I think that disdain that a lot of the game world and NPCs show towards the player is perhaps an extension of that harshness that you experience. And I think the same can be said about our own surroundings and world, where it’s quite cold and harsh at times. That link between reality or that harshness drives us in our world to find the beauty within it. And perhaps I think that’s the value that we provide and the value we experience at the core of this game. Whenever there’s a game and from the onset everyone’s like, “Oh my God, you’re the hero. Thank you so much,” to me it doesn’t feel real.

So if you hear just that part, it might make me seem like a sick or crazy person. But I think that’s where a lot of the reality comes from. Take love or any type of emotion that you may feel, if there’s too much of it, I think it lowers its value. So it’s that scarcity that I think really makes people feel and appreciate whatever it is they’re experiencing.

I love reading superhero comics like Superman and they are partly about how he’s special and amazing and savior of the world. But these days I’m drawn more to the stories of struggle, much like your games are or manga like Berserk is, and I see that a lot with others too. Do you think it’s a bit of a cultural shift that these darker stories are more in demand?

To make sure there’s no confusion, I want to be clear that, as a consumer, I love both. I love Superman and I love Berserk. I think they both have their own flavor and their own touch, but they’re both super enjoyable. When I said reality feels harsh and the games I make are in a way a reflection of that, that’s more me personally, how I have a worldview and how I translate that into the game design. The fact that happened to be a cultural match in terms of the times and the era that we live in, of course, there’s a sense of relief and happiness there as well. But again, that’s just how I create games. But as a consumer, I love all flavors.

Following on from that, how many of the games you make are a reflection of how you’re feeling? It’s a joke among fans that there must be something going on in there to be able to conjure the kind of imagery From Software does. Are you guys okay? Is everything alright over there?

[Laughs] A lot of the creature and monster design comes from my direction, and looking only at myself I mean, I feel okay. I think I’m pretty healthy and I’m enjoying life. So all joking aside, yeah, I think that it kind of is what it is.

That’s good. We’re just checking.

[Laughs]

One of the big parts of Elden Ring has been the collaboration with George R. R. Martin. How do you reflect on that experience now that the process has come to an end and is it something that you want to do again? I know a lot of people are talking about Brandon Sanderson as someone they’d love to see a collaboration with, and he’s a fan of games.

One of the huge value-adds of Elden Ring is, of course, George R. R. Martin’s contribution in terms of the lore and the mythology, and it is one of the very unique points that other From Software games don’t have. When the team was able to start unpacking his lore and his mythology, it turned into a huge stimulation for us, and it was something that on the development side, we don’t get to experience that often. So there was a lot of fun in terms of the world-building and world-setting and trying to decipher and depict and then translate that to what players see on screen.

So if we have the chance to work with another major creator, I think we would definitely be open to exploring that because of how unique the experience was, both on the development side as well as what players experienced. And with regards to George R. R. Martin himself as a person, aside from the stimulation the team received from all of his amazing mythology and lore, George had a very good understanding of game design and video games in general. I think he has a certain respect for it as well, so that made the collaboration and the entire process very, very seamless and easy for us.

Do other mediums interest you, especially for the games that you have made? There are no doubt plenty of opportunities to use the success of Elden Ring or Dark Souls to make a movie, a TV show, or something else outside of games. Do you foresee a future where you want to adapt things or try different mediums?

I don’t know if I should say we or perhaps me in this instance, but I have no intention of saying, “Oh, there’s never going to be a movie” or denying all possibilities of other adaptations. It’s just how I think and how I best communicate with audiences is through the interactive medium. So that’s where my focus has gone. And when I think about how I can best communicate, it is through that interactivity. There are many others who can make a much better linear format content than we can. For myself and From Software, I think the biggest value-add that we can provide is by making games. So again, not saying no to any possibilities, but perhaps there are others who are better suited to adapting Elden Ring and other From Software franchises into different medium formats.

You’ve been successful in realizing the sense of adventure and challenge that you wanted to achieve with Elden Ring. Do you think those two elements will continue to be the focus going forward or do you have new ideas or themes you want to tackle?

On the one hand, I often direct multiple games or oversee multiple games at once, so that difficulty curve and sense of achievement are always going to be a core of my game direction and game design. But with another game, perhaps–and this is going to happen sometime in the future that I’ll be able to talk about it in more detail–there might be different themes or core elements.

I guess another way to ask the question is, what excites you in games now and make you excited to play and create?

There are many elements that excite me when it comes to both video games and tabletop board games, and I think that there are many joys to be extracted from that. But for me, personally, what brings the most excitement comes while I’m making a game. Whenever I have a good idea and I can create a hypothesis and then test that theory against, “Hey, is this fun? Is this a good idea or not?” Those moments to me bring the most excitement. So perhaps through my work, I am constantly chasing that feeling and that excitement as I’m making games.

One other thing that really excites me right now is watching my daughter grow. And this might be a very short-term thing, but it’s fascinating and very interesting to see a small human being discover or see the world; see how a human is constructed or built in a way, how the personality is formed, how they start to identify and build their own identity. And this might just be being a father, but I think that there’s certainly something there that excites me.

Do you think that the experience of doing that, watching your daughter grow will eventually make its way into the game? Do you think about how that more naive and idealistic perspective kids have could change how you see the world and thus the worlds you depict in games?

I don’t think about that too much and I am not against the idea of change. In a lot of ways, I think having a daughter can expand the possibilities, and that expansion is a necessary element of continuing to make great games–a stimulant of [creativity] if you will. And I don’t mean to talk about my daughter as an object or anything, but in the process of making games, I think it is a necessary and important stimulant because it helps you see the world through a different lens in a lot of ways. And if that is causing worry for my fans or the gamers, I don’t think there’s much to worry about.

For me, it’s again, finding and discovering that fleeting moment of beauty in a lot of these dark, cold, harsh, grotesque worlds that I think allows it to shine even more. That philosophy applies to how I design and direct video games. So if I find a newer, even higher or more stimulating beauty, that will just help make the worlds even darker, more grotesque, and harsher so that it can shine even brighter. In terms of a fantasy world, the brighter something shines, the darker the shadow it casts, right?