Japanese designer and writer Hidetaka Miyazaki has several created award-winning video games as the director of FromSoftware. His Soulslike games, in particular, are very popular among the gaming community, but almost everyone agrees that one Soulslike game was butchered due to Miyazaki’s negligence.
Miyazaki did an outstanding job setting up the Dark Souls series with 2011’s Dark Souls, but unfortunately, for the second game, Miyazaki wasn’t completely involved because he was more focused on 2015’s Bloodborne. As a result, Dark Souls II (2014) just couldn’t meet the expectations. While many fans believe that Dark Souls II doesn’t fit in, Miyazaki once explained how crucial the game was in setting up the future of the series.
Hidetaka Miyazaki explained how Dark Souls II shaped his future video games
Since 2009, FromSoftware’s president, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has served as the director of every Soulslike game from the studios except 2014’s Dark Souls II. At the time, Miyazaki was occupied with Bloodborne and chose to serve as a supervisor for the second game which Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura directed.
Many fans of the Soulslike genre believe that Dark Souls II was a major letdown. However, Miyazaki explained earlier this year that Dark Souls II was very crucial for the studios as it shaped the future games. He told IGN,
“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 – There’s really no way of telling how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2.”
Later in the interview, Miyazaki admitted that not serving as the director of Dark Souls II is “one little area of regret” for him but he remained firm that the game was important in showing FromSoftware the right direction.
Hidetaka Miyazaki says his team at FromSoftware is efficient at creating video games
Further in the interview, Hidetaka Miyazaki praised his team at FromSoftware. After identifying the flaws, they are good at making the correct decisions, allowing them to start production quickly. Miyazaki said,
“I don’t know if it’s some great secret… but generally we are just blessed with a great staff who love to create these games and who are, I think you could say, efficient at creating games – I think one area is we’re able to understand quickly what we want to make and [are] able to make these decisions early on in development – We’re able to iterate and we’re able to leave things on the chopping board. We’re able to go ahead with ideas and a quick pace. We’re able to quickly change and quickly decide on the kind of game we want to make.”
As for Dark Souls II, Miyazaki may have unintentionally fixed the game and released it as Elden Ring as many players have felt DS2 and Elden Ring are somewhat similar, particularly design-wise. The focus on more open gameplay instead of linear levels will remind players of Dark Souls II.
As of now, Miyazaki is all geared up to give the fans the first DLC of 2022’s Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, which is all set to release on June 21, 2024.
