Elden Ring director says the expansion's new weapons are 'a main selling point,' including double-bladed shields, reverse-grip ninja swords, and acrobatic martial arts

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The promise of katanas more overpowered than the ones I already have.

Man in golden hoplite armor with great sword on orange sky
(Image credit: FromSoftware)

One of the real "oh crap" moments from Shadow of the Erdtree's reveal trailer was when a guy dressed like a vicar launched into some flying kicks straight out of an '80s Hong Kong martial arts movie. Not only do FromSoftware DLCs often play host to their games' best experiences, but they also usually have a monopoly on the coolest weapons too.

That seems to hold true for Shadow of the Erdtree as well. In addition to what was shown off in the trailer, Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki provided some absolutely mouthwatering weapon details during an interview with Famitsu. Theangryfurlong on Reddit provided an English transcript of the talk, which I also checked against a machine translation.

Miyazaki called the DLC's new weapons and spells "one of the main selling points" of the expansion. "Especially weapons, there are eight new weapon types added. Of course, there are additions to existing weapon types as well."

Miyazaki cites the ōdachi, a larger, heavier variant of Japanese sword as one of them, but the thing that got me excited was what he called "gyakute ken"—theangryfurlong translated this as "reverse-hand sword," and I've seen "gyakute" used to describe a reverse-grip method of unsheathing a Japanese sword, so it certainly sounds like we're getting underhand ninja blades in Shadow of the Erdtree. I might just be dual wielding those bad boys come June.

Miyazaki also alluded to the martial arts moveset and throwing daggers shown off in the trailer. The latter are particularly interesting to me⁠—FromSoft throwing knives are usually a piddly consumable item, situationally useful at best, but Miyazaki describes the new ones as "throwing daggers that change all attacks into throws."

One final cool weapon type is the double bladed shield shown off toward the end of the trailer⁠—it turns out that this is actually based on a real style of historical weapon called a "dueling shield." It's just the sort of deep cut design I love to see out of FromSoft, and we can throw it in the pile of positively sick new toys I'll be basing future builds on. 

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.