I'm going to let you in a little secret: FromSoftware has been playing coy about the size of Erdtree's shadow, over two years the Elden Ring extension is now in production. In past interviews, the developers have suggested that it is the approximate size of Limgrave, the starting area for the base game. Maybe even a little big. But I spent the day playing Shadow of The Erdtree at FromSoftware's office in Tokyo last month.

Not only is the land area likely to be larger than expected, but it is more complex than the existing parts of Eldenling's map, with cliffs and canyons, and it needs to be puzzled how we can get to another point. Those who try to create a beeline for each map fragment will encounter more than a few surprises.

"There were a lot of possibilities initially, but one thing that was decided very early on was its size," said Hidetaka Miyazaki, President of FromSoftware. "I wanted the scale of this map because I wanted the player experience 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 to maintain it and enhance it."

I had the opportunity to venture further into Erdtree's shadow than anyone else because of the cover feature for the next issue of PC Gamer, which was launched later this month. I also came to ask Miyazaki for insights into the design of the land of shadows and how it compares to the original map.

"Obviously it's exactly the same, but small and never cuts it completely, so we wanted to approach it from a sense of granularity," he said, "to see how dense this map is, the ratio of legacy dungeons to open-field areas, and how intertwined they are." How do you feel about it? This is what I wanted to explore anew with the dlc: in a slightly different way, with a slightly different granularity, albeit in terms of regaining that sense of scale.

For more information on what you can find in the first (but definitely not only) open-field area of Erdtree's shadow, check out the exploration-focused preview of editor Shaun Prescott. Next, Associate Editor Tyler Colp explores one of Shadow of The Erdtree's exciting new weapon types to show how far Software's action chops are from the era of Demon's Souls.1