In an interview with GameInformer, the Game Director of Elden Ring spoke about the characters created by “Game of Thrones” author George R. R. Martin. According to Miyazaki, he might be surprised at how these characters were changed for the final game.
What role does Martin play in Elden Ring? The GoT author mostly wrote the backstory, mythology, and lore for the action RPG. This includes, according to Miyazaki, numerous “great heroes”.
His work is more focused on the overarching world and the background of the game and how the story revolves around the Elden Ring.
In an interview with GameInformer, FromSoftware President and Game Director Hidetaka Miyazaki gave a brief insight into the process and what kind of characters the GoT author contributed.
This is what Miyazaki says about the characters: He discusses what kind of figures Martin wrote for FromSoftware and what the task of the Elden Ring developers was in making something out of these figures.
In their original form, he describes these characters as initially more human beings:
When Martin wrote these figures and created the origin story, the myth for the world of the Elden Ring, these demigods were much closer to their original form and perhaps closer to the human form back then, before the shattering, before everything began.
Anyone familiar with previous FromSoftware games knows: When encountering demigods, they are usually not shining angels. There is hardly a character in Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro that is not at least quirky and enigmatic, usually more creepy to horrifying.
Especially among the bosses, we encounter numerous fallen heroes. For example, Knight Artorias from Dark Souls 1 is a legendary character from the universe.
Fallen kings and queens, knights, and numerous heroes: The games offer many tragic and horrific fates with their characters, mixed with a dose of madness and decay.
Elden Ring turns “great heroes” into horrific monsters
How will this be in Elden Ring? From previous materials, it was clear that it will be no different in Elden Ring. We also know from the story that we will face fallen demigods who became monsters through events in the Lands Between, the world of Elden Ring.
Miyazaki describes it as the developers’ task to take these characters from Martin and turn them into something horrific:
So it was more up to us to interpret this and ask: “How did they become such inhuman monsters? And how did the insane shards of the Elden Ring and its power affect them? So our task was to take these great heroes and transform and distort them into something they were not. […] This process of taking these very human characters with weaknesses, but also these very dramatic, heroic characters and basically breaking them down and making them into these misshaped, grotesque monsters… I personally had a lot of fun with this.
What do we know about the story? Here’s a quick overview with the known information:
- The world of Elden Ring is called “The Land Between”.
- In the Lands Between, the great Erd Tree, to whose roots the Elden Ring belonged, stands.
- The Elden Ring, a mysterious and powerful object, has been shattered into six pieces due to a significant event.
- You assume the role of the “Tarnished”, and must reassemble the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord.
- To do this, you must depose the current ruler, Marika the Eternal.
- Her numerous children are demigods and have grabbed the pieces of the shattered Elden Ring.
- They were driven to madness by the power of the pieces, which caused a war in the Lands Between.
Here’s the latest story trailer:
Miyazaki himself is apparently very curious about how George R. R. Martin will react to his characters when he sees their transformations in the final game.
Head of Elden Ring believes “Game of Thrones” author Martin might be “a little shocked”.
This is what Miyazaki says about Martin: The Game Director suspects that Martin might at least be surprised by what has become of “his” characters in Elden Ring.
And I believe that if we give Martin the chance to see the game and the characters, he will be a little shocked. When he wrote them, he really imagined something more human, a bit more traditional human drama and fantasy characters. So I hope he will be excited about it.
He also revealed his favorite character in the game, who was created by George R. R. Martin. This character is named Rykard, but Miyazaki did not disclose further details about it.
We will probably have to find out for ourselves in the game what makes this character so special for him. Previous gameplay scenes suggest a lot of monstrous things to expect. Just yesterday, new scenes were revealed: Elden Ring shows new gameplay with optional dungeon and tough boss fight
When does Elden Ring come out? The action RPG with an open world will celebrate its release on February 25.
Then you can find out for yourself on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, and PS4 what FromSoftware has done with Martin’s poor characters.
In the interview, Miyazaki also commented on a tradition in FromSoftware games, which caused laughter in the community: He has rediscovered his love for poison swamps
