From Software's president, Hidetaka Miyazaki, loved tabletop RPGs and their original books full of quests and monsters from his childhood, even before he owned a video game. It is not hard to imagine that every game he has designed at From Software reflects that passion, but "The Elden Ring" especially so. Its sprawling maps, from "Middle-earth" in "The Lord of the Rings" to "Azeroth" in "Warcraft," resemble the ones I loved to draw (albeit poorly) at length on my own as a child. The Elden Ring is also a catacomb filled with skeletons, which seems to be a direct link to the RPGs of the 80's.

"You could say that trying to capture the excitement of old tabletop games and gamebooks was one aspect of making The Elden Ring," Miyazaki told me in a recent interview for the Shadow of the Eldestree expansion (more on this in the available on our website (you can read the rest of the story in the cover story available on our website).

I asked him if he considered "The Elden Ring" to be an extension of the dungeon crawlers of the 1980s. Despite being From Software's most accessible RPG, "The Elden Ring" has few of the conveniences (such as quest logs) that modern players would expect.

"When it comes to exploring RPGs and fantasy worlds, it's more my personal preference than anything else. 'The excitement, at least for me, comes from looking at the world map and pitting world maps against each other. So when we finally did that and pieced it together when we were making 'The Elden Ring,' it was a real personal moment for me."

"When I interviewed you about 'The Elden Ring,' I think I told you that I was still working on my ideal fantasy RPG. And while 'The Elden Ring' is not quite there yet, it's getting pretty close. It's getting close.

It was such a fascinating thread that I had to ask, of course, what was missing from his "ideal" RPG. Miyazaki replied with a laugh.

"It's hard to say without spoiling the next idea or the next game. But I think one of the things that makes it difficult to achieve my ideal, although not necessarily lacking, is that when you play it, you know everything that is going to happen. You already know everything that is going to happen. So in terms of enjoying the game from the player's point of view, hopefully someone will make my ideal fantasy game without knowing that. That way I can enjoy it just as a player."

I threw in the possibility of short-term amnesia. Perhaps by being immediately forgetful, Miyazaki might be able to enjoy his game more as a player?

"That's a dream," he joked. 'I would self-induce amnesia and enjoy the game I created. But I might get really angry and break the controller. Might not be a good idea."