Apart from a wasted hour or so dabbling in Dark Souls, Elden Ring was my first soulslike, and so I think it's understandable that when I found myself standing in the muck in the middle of Caelid, my immediate reaction was,"This is.
"In between it existing and not existing, with this version, let's just say I try to imagine different ways I want to die as a player or be killed. So that expression of myself has been imparted into the poison swamp." Miyazaki seemed to confirm that understanding:"So, not in the poison swamp itself—that's been curbed—but in other parts of the gameplay, there are many ways to die."
I know I'm going to have countless dedicated soulslikers lining up to tell me to"git gud," and all I can say in response is that I think I'm allowed to slump back into my chair and sigh when Miyazaki says his takeaway from the overblown poison swamp situation in Elden Ring was"I need to come up with new ways to make you dead." I barely survived the first time, man!