A game director is as important for a video game as a director is important for a movie. The game director decides how players will play it, how the story will be presented, and much more. And over the years, video games have seen a number of legendary directors such as Hideo Kojima, Hideki Kamiya, Shinji Mikami, and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki, etc. All of them bring their own distinctive style to the games that they work on.
Hidetaka Miyazaki has mostly worked on the Dark Souls series, and through his work, he has given the industry something huge to care for. A whole new genre of games. But it looks like he might step down as the director for future games, and players might start seeing new faces in the director’s seat.
Hidetaka Miyazaki suggests new directors might work on new games post-Elden Ring
Dark Souls was no doubt a revelation; fans everywhere were loving its style, playing it, attempting to kill a boss, dying, and then coming back. This is a simple core gameplay loop that every game follows, but imagine the game being very hard and players losing their XP every time they die, halting their process of leveling up.
Hidetaka Miyazaki became an overnight star once this game saw success. He then went on to work on games like Bloodborne, Sekiro, Dark Souls 3, and Elden Ring, and it would be hard to find a fault in his way of making games, as each and every one of these games is excellent.
Hence, it becomes very unusual when one even starts thinking about someone else directing a souls game. But the idea is not new altogether; Dark Souls 2 was not directed by Miayazaki either, and some people might not like that game, but it was still a very good souls game. It was directed by Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura.
This proves two things: FromSoftware has no shortage of people who understand what the Dark Souls series and soulslike genre are all about as a whole. This also means that Hidetaka Miyazaki is not scared of letting someone else try their hands at these games. He even said so much recently.
In a recent interview with IGN, he reportedly said, “I think it’s very likely that we’ll see new directors going forward. And I think if we do that, I’d like to step away from that supervisory role and give them full direction and full control over those projects.”
Who knows, maybe fans will someday see Hideo Kojima directing a souls game in the future. He might be busy with his projects at this moment at his massive development studio, but directing a game with convoluted storytelling sounds right up his alley. It would be exciting to see a Bloodborne sequel directed by Hideo Kojima, to be honest.
But whatever happens, it’s very exciting to see that Miyazaki is open-minded enough to let someone else work on these games. This attitude gives way to new ideas and even takes games that remain unchanged for so long in a new direction.
Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring have more similarities than players know
Hidetaka Miyazaki suggests that while people might not like Dark Souls 2 as much as other souls games by FromSoftware, it’s hard to see Elden Ring happen without the second installment in the the Dark Souls series. He suggests that Dark Souls 2’s nonlinear way of exploring, where players could complete it in any way they wanted, paved the way for Elden Ring.
He said, “In regards to Dark Souls 2, I actually personally think this was a really great project for us, and I think without it, we wouldn’t have had a lot of the connections and a lot of the ideas that went forward and carried the rest of the series.”
It’s a great game nonetheless and most of its issues were fixed with the Scholar of the First Sin expansion. It has its own massive community that loves this game for what it is. Now, all that remains for fans to see is an open-world take on Bloodborne. Let’s see who directs it: Hidetaka Miyazaki or someone else.
