How did George R. R. Martin help make Elden Ring?

The collaboration was announced with the game itself, and both men have described the same division of labour. George R. R. Martin wrote the backstory and mythology of the Lands Between, its history, its demigods, the events before the game, working with creative freedom about a past the players would never directly see. Miyazaki, the game’s lead writer, wrote the in-game narrative built on that foundation. Miyazaki’s own comparison is the famous one: Martin’s text was like a tabletop role-playing game’s dungeon master’s handbook, the world-document the actual campaign is refereed from.

The meeting itself was a fan’s errand. Miyazaki has been an open admirer of Martin’s work since Fevere Dream and A Song of Ice and Fire; he approached the author, found him knowledgeable about FromSoftware’s games in return, and the two signed on, with some of the Game of Thrones television staff also assisting. Martin, for his part, has noted dryly that he did his work years before the game shipped and then simply waited.