Elden Ring’s Miyazaki wants you to experience this, more than anything else, when you step into Shadow of the Erdtree

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is only a couple of weeks away now, and it seems like the expansion might be a lot bigger than previously promised.

If there's one thing I know about FromSoftware, it's that it's not very good at explaining how big Elden Ring is - remember how it was only meant to take 30 hours to beat? Yeah, the devs got that wrong. Now, it seems like director Hidetaka Miyazaki and co have once again set the wrong expectations for the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, though at least it's seeming like there'll actually be more rather than less again. Our own Alex went hands-on with the DLC recently, making a big point of how big the new area is, and in a new interview with PC Gamer, Miyazaki spoke of the team's goal to make players feel that same sense of scale with Shadow of the Erdtree.

"At the very outset there were a lot of possibilities, but one of the things that was determined very early on was that size," Miyazaki said. "We wanted that sense of scale for this map, because we wanted an experience for the player that was going to match that of the base game. We wanted them to experience that sense of discovery, and that sense of wonder and exploration again. We needed a map that was going to uphold that and bolster that."

Miyazaki also spoke about FromSoftware's approach to designing the new area, the Land of Shadow, and its similarities and differences with the original Lands Between. "Obviously it being exactly the same, but smaller, wouldn't quite cut it, so we wanted to approach from a sense of granularity, is the word we're using," he said. "How dense this map is, and the ratio of legacy dungeon to open field areas, and how they intertwine. This is something we wanted to explore anew in the DLC: In terms of recapturing that sense of scale but in a slightly different way with a slightly different granularity."

Shadow of the Erdtree is due to release June 21, but there are a few important things you have to do in order to even play it - luckily, we can help you out with that.