With Shadow of the Erdtree, FromSoftware wanted to build a map 'that's not quite open field and not quite legacy dungeon,' but instead 'blends the two together'

As we noted in our preview of Shadow of the Erdtree last week, the expansion's new map is notably different from the Lands Between, which we explored in Elden Ring. It's smaller, yes, but also denser with enemies, activities, and notable locations, and not quite so simple to navigate. You'll find more cliffs, valleys, and bridges blocking off new areas you may have first thought you'd be able to gallop to. 

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FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki said that the team planned for this expansion to be big from the start, because they wanted players «to experience that sense of discovery, and that sense of wonder and exploration again,» and they needed a large scale map «to uphold and bolster that.»

But how did the more intricate design of the new world map come about? When we spoke for PC Gamer's cover story on Shadow of the Erdtree, I asked Miyazaki if there was a bit more DNA from Dark Souls' tightly interconnected map here, this time. 

«There was a sense of that as we were building it,» he said. «I think what you're describing there is what we tried to achieve this time, with something that's not quite open field and not quite legacy dungeon. It's something that kind of blends the two together and creates that better sense of verticality. While you do have the large open field area… we wanted to not just capture the sense of scale and granularity, but the sense of variety as well. So we hope what you were experiencing was that attempt to add to the variety of how we space out and structure the open field to the legacy dungeons.»

When I played through Elden Ring back in 2022, I loved some of the freedom and flexibility its open world design offered, but also found myself worn out by the scope of it all and some of the repeated boss