Elden Ring's producer says development of its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is 'going well', compares it to Bloodborne with 'new battles and new characters'

pcgamer.com:

FromSoftware recently received a gong for Elden Ring at the Japanese PlayStation Partners awards, as part of which producer Yasuhiro Kitao picked up the trophy and said a select few words to the press. The conference was reported on by the publication Game Watch and, as Kitao was speaking in Japanese, this is a lightly edited machine translation of his remarks.

Kitao begins on familiar turf, saying the studio was surprised by «so many people» picking up the game (publisher Bandai Namco's most recent milestone was an announcement Elden Ring has sold over 20 million copies). Kitao said FromSoftware didn't expect such wild numbers and «there are no words other than gratitude».

Kitao says this success hasn't changed anything about how FromSoftware works, saying the studio remains committed to working «diligently to create something interesting and valuable.» The success has meant, however, that FromSoftware has moved to a new and larger studio thanks to its increasing numbers of staff. «The aim was to create an environment where they could concentrate more,» says Kitao, which is rather ominous in the context of the studio that created Byrgenwerth et al. «The development environment itself is still in its infancy, but it is improving.»

Then the question about Elden Ring's DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, which doesn't even have a release date yet. Kitao doesn't really say anything of substance, but the exciting point is that he uses the 'B' word. «I'll talk about the DLC another time,» says Kitao. «It's still a little ways off, but progress is going well. Like Bloodborne's expansion, it has new battles and new characters: So please look forward to new things.»

FromSoftware generally does excellent expansions, the kind that really