Hidetaka Miyazaki rose to the spotlight as the creator of the first Souls game, Demon Souls, back in 2009. Since then, he has led the series into being an astounding success as director of not only Dark Souls, but also a macabre horror title some may have heard of, called Bloodborne. And now, he is in the director’s chair once more for Dark Souls 3.
Speaking in an interview with Gamespot, Miyazaki-san touched on some of what is new to the series with Dark Souls 3, and where he thinks the franchise will go from here.
In regards to how working on Bloodborne may have affected Dark Souls 3, he said, “From Bloodborne, I’ve taken the limit on resources, which will add additional gameplay strategy. Having certain items give certain effects is another thing that I took over from Bloodborne,” but, “while working on Bloodborne, I realised several unique things that I can only get in Dark Souls… I realised I missed working on dark fantasy. That brought me back to Dark Souls. I was always thinking “classic metallic knight armour is awesome,” but couldn’t use that in Bloodborne because it’s a different genre. That’s something you can only get in the Dark Souls series. Dragons too! And magic! That actually led to me coming up with a new way to evolve the franchise.”
When asked to elaborate, especially if the future of the series might hold a much requested sci-fi souls game, Miyazaki-san stated, “Dark Souls is my life’s work. Everything I came up with for Dark Souls 3 is based on my personal preferences. However, Dark Souls 3 is also actually the turning point for the franchise. This project was launched by the previous From Software management, before I was appointed president. In that sense, Dark Souls 3 is the turning point for the series… As president of From Software, I am planning to launch several new projects… Those could be something sci-fi, but you’ll have to stay tuned for more about that in the future.”
Having worked in the past on Armored Core, he went on to say, “I definitely want to bring the Miyazaki Touch to those genres, both sci-fi and Japanese mechs. With regards to Armored Core, there are several barriers that From Software, as a whole, needs to overcome in order to give new games to the fans. If the fans out there really want that, I suggest contacting Bandai Namco. But yes, I do want to work on something new, and I’m please to hear people are interested in seeing that.”
Dark Souls 3 was recently shown off at Gamescom. As for Miyazaki-san’s most recent game, our Bloodborne review called it, “massive, challenging, wonderful, frustrating, beautiful, menacing, and bloody,” all while saying, “the game is absolutely breathtaking and amazing.” For more on Dark Souls 3 and whatever Miyazaki-san turns his attention to next, keep checking back right here on Gamespresso.