Bloodborne Interview

IGN has published an interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki, the game director on Bloodborne. Miyazaki is also credited for the overall direction and mood of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, two titles he also directed, which happen to share many of the gameplay concepts he’s currently reusing for Bloodborne.

A snippet on his influences:

Miyazaki’s love for reading is immediately apparent when you hear him speak. He explained to us, (Growing up, as a kid, I loved to read. I liked to read books that were above my range. I always tried to aim higher and read difficult books. What would happen is, although I could read them, sometimes — because I was so young — I couldn’t read TOO deep into them. Maybe I would understand half of the story? What would happen is that my imagination would help fill the other half, and that imagination element would just blow up. That’s kind of the part I enjoyed as well, filling the gaps of where I didn’t understand the readings, where my imagination took me eventually to think that I understood what I was reading.)

He elaborated, (It kind of relates to what I’m doing in my creations. In addition to that, I studied Sociolology and Psychology, and, after school, I revisited those themes, and this is the fruit of what you’re experiencing now.)

When asked if he played games a lot as a kid, his answer surprised. (Growing up, I was restricted at home from playing video games until I reached University. This is a reason why I stumble when I’m asked this question. There was a board game called Sorcery which is one of my favorites and I would often revisit the game. It’s not a video game but it definitely stands out in my mind as a game that impacted me.) Unsurprisingly, he elaborated on another physical game he enjoyed, (I’ve been a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, and for them to have come this far is very meaningful to me.)

And on multiplayer:

Multiplayer has always been a bit of a mystery in the Souls games. In light of recent trailers that showcased three human players teaming up to fight a single boss, fans theorized that there might be a more streamlined, jump into a friend’s game kind of multiplayer this time around. Well, that’s not the case, as Miyazaki clarified. (You still have to go through the matchmaking process. However, there is a workaround where you can use keywords or a secret word and share them with friends. And of course, you can use Chalice Dungeons where you can share your chalice Dungeon with a limited number of friends.)