Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls Game Director Interview

The Guardian has published an interview with From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki, who most of you probably now as the director of Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The piece (penned by Simon Parkin) touches on the man’s peculiar career and inspirations, and while it might not be very long, it certainly more than makes up for it by being dense with interesting information. Here’s a snippet:

Miyazaki describes himself as a difficult child. (Unlike most kids in Japan, I didn’t have a dream,) he says. (I wasn’t ambitious.) He eventually found himself aimlessly pursuing a degree in social science at the well-respected Keio University. As he approached graduation, he considered applying to a game development studio, but drifted into a job at the US IT company Oracle Corporation.

Several years later, he started thinking about video games again. He met up with some former college friends who suggested new titles to play. One was Ico, a mystical fairytale in which players assume the role of a boy who must lead a waif-like girl by the hand along a castle’s craggy ramparts, pursued by their ghoulish captors. (That game awoke me to the possibilities of the medium,) says Miyazaki. (I wanted to make one myself.)

…

After working on the Armored Core robot-combat series, he heard about a game in development elsewhere in the studio. (Demon’s Souls wasn’t doing well,) he says. (The project had problems and the team had been unable to create a compelling prototype. But when I heard it was a fantasy-action role-playing game, I was excited. I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted. Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care it was already a failure.)