Miyazaki just dropped a huge amount of Elden Ring info

At long last, we finally got a proper look at Elden Ring during Summer Games Fest last week, and all of a sudden we now have a flood of information about what to expect in the upcoming game. In an interview with IGN, legendary director Hidetaka Miyazaki gave plenty of information on the background lore, along with some discussion of abilities, multiplayer and the game’s structure.

One of the first topics discussed was Elden Ring’s setting, The Lands Between, which has been deliberately designed to give “an enormous sense of scale and this broadness and openness”. It’s split into six major areas, each of which is the domain of a demigod. These are lined up to suggest a specific order in which to tackle them, but the player can make their own decisions about which to do first. “You won’t be able to access everything from the start, but there are a lot of different ways you can approach each area,” Miyazaki explained. “And there’s a lot of freedom as to which order you tackle different areas as well.”

Players will be able to access a hub area a little later in the game, which you can “branch out from”, and also the six main areas of The Lands Between. “These will be the domains or the areas of the main demigod bosses,” Miyazaki explained. “From here, you’re able to explore not only these mainline dungeon areas, but also a wide variety of catacombs, castles, and fortresses, which are interspersed throughout the map. These have a range of scale and scope, but the main dungeons are these six – these are the ones that you’re going to be heading to on your adventures throughout the main world. “

This all sounds like a massive map, and thankfully, Elden Ring will indeed have a fast travel system for long distances.

In terms of gameplay, the player will be able to jump – which should hopefully help with dodging attacks from some of those massive monsters, and players will now be able to ride around on horseback (as the trailer suggested). New additions to combat include the ability to “summon the spirits of deceased enemies and use them as allies in battles,” which Miyazaki described as just one alternative to simply going head-on. “So we have a number of elements that let you approach different situations at a high level of freedom,” he added.

As for how you can acquire these abilities, Miyazaki mentioned that while some can be bought from stores or acquired from NPCs, they are generally “hidden throughout the game’s world for the player to discover through exploration, rather than unlocking them through a skill tree as in previous titles.”