Characters from the Game of Thrones author were great heroes until the Elden Ring intentionally destroyed them

In an interview with GameInformer, the Elden Ring game director spoke about the characters created by Game of Thrones author George RR Martin. According to Miyazaki, they might be amazed at how these characters were changed for the finished game.

What is Martin’s role in Elden Ring? The GoT author mainly wrote the background story, mythology and lore for the action RPG. According to Miyazaki, this includes numerous “great heroes”.

So his work is more limited to the overall world and background of the game and how the story around the Elden Ring fits together.

In an interview with GameInformer FromSoftware President and Game Director Hidetaka Miyazaki gave a little insight into the process and what kind of characters the GoT author contributed.

This is what Miyazaki says about the characters: He goes into what kind of characters Martin wrote for FromSoftware and what the Elden Ring developers were tasked with making of those characters.

In their original form, he refers to these characters as originally more human beings:

When Martin was writing these characters, and when he was creating the origin story, the myth for the world of the Elden Ring, these demigods were much closer to their original form and maybe closer to human form back then, before the Shattering, before it all began.

Anyone who knows previous FromSoftware games already knows: When you meet demigods, they are usually not shining angels. There is hardly a character in Dark Souls, Bloodborne or Sekiro that isn’t at least weird and enigmatic, usually rather creepy to the point of terrible.

Especially with 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 numerous tragic and terrible fates with their characters, mixed with a dose of madness and decay.

Elden Ring turns “great heroes” into terrible monsters

How will it be in Elden Ring? It’s clear from the material so far that the Elden Ring will be no different. As for the storyline, we also already know that we will face off against fallen demigods that have been turned into monsters by events in the Betweenlands, the world of Elden Ring.

Miyazaki describes it as a developer’s job to take these characters from Martin and turn them into something terrible:

So it was more up to us to interpret that and ask, “How did they become such inhuman monsters? And how did the mad shards of the Elden ring and its power affect them? So that was our job, to take these great heroes and deform and distort them into something they weren’t. […] This process of taking these very human characters with weaknesses but also these very dramatic, heroic characters and basically breaking them down and turning them into these misshapen, grotesque monsters… I personally really enjoyed that.

What do we know about the story? Here is a quick overview with the known information:

• The world of Elden Ring is called “The Land Between” or in German: Das Zwischenland.
• In the in-between stands the mighty Earth Tree, at the roots of which was the Elden Ring
• However, the Elden Ring, a mysterious and powerful item, has been broken into six pieces by a cataclysmic event
• You slip into the role of the “Tainted” (English: Tarnished), have to put the Elden ring back together and ascend to the Elden Lord
• For this you have to expel the current ruler, Marika the Eternal.
• Her many children are demigods who have claimed pieces of the destroyed Elden ring
• They were driven insane by the power of the parts, causing a war in the Between Lands.

Here’s the latest story trailer:

Miyazaki himself is apparently very excited to see how George RR Martin reacts to his characters when he sees their changes in the finished game.

Elden Ring boss thinks ‘Game of Thrones’ author Martin might be ‘a bit shocked’

This is what Miyazaki says to Martin: The game director suggests that Martin might at least be surprised at what has become of “his” characters in Elden Ring. He himself apparently had a lot of fun taking these characters and destroying them:

According to Miyazaki, the original variants of the characters are somewhat more traditional fantasy characters and more human.

And I think if we give Martin a chance to see the game and the characters, he’s going to be a bit shocked. When he wrote it he really envisioned something more human, a bit more traditional human drama and fantasy characters. So I hope that he will be enthusiastic about it.

He also revealed his favorite character in the game, created by George RR Martin. This is called Rykard, but Miyazaki did not reveal any further details.

We’ll probably have to see for ourselves in-game what makes this character so special to him. In any case, previous gameplay scenes promise a lot of monstrous things. Just yesterday there were new scenes to see: Elden Ring shows new gameplay with an optional dungeon and tough boss fight

When is Elden Ring coming out? The open-world Aciton RPG celebrates its release on February 25th.

Then you can find out for yourself what FromSoftware did to poor Martin characters in-game on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5 and PS4.

Incidentally, in the interview, Miyazaki also commented on a tradition in FromSoftware games and thus caused laughter in the community: He would have rediscovered his love for poison swamps