Demons, chaos, dragons - all of them are different incarnations and representations of our idea of death in 'Dark Souls.'
— Hidetaka Miyazaki
I've been familiar with western fantasy novels since I was a boy.
I don't claim to be a pro gamer in any shape or form.
I'm not very good at action games in general and find most action games to be hard.
I believe it's important for us to have a diverse and free approach to making games in the way that we like.
I think one of the studio's characteristics is to embrace wholeheartedly what we feel is interesting; what we perceive to be worthwhile, cool, or beautiful; and to place these ideals at the foundation of the games we make.
Now I'm president. I get to meet a lot of other company presidents. They're such weird people. I'm fascinated by them. I use some of them as enemy characters in our games.
Overcoming challenges by learning something in a game is a very rewarding feeling, and that's what I wanted to prioritise in 'Dark Souls' and 'Demon's Souls.'
First of all, I don't dislike direct storytelling - people seem to think that about my games! Actually, the truth is, I'm just not good at implementing direct narrative in my games.
If you had a game that said, 'Oops, you're dead. Now switch off the game,' it wouldn't be very successful. So you do need to have something to teach and be there to learn from, and we feel that death in video games is a positive experience.
It's true that there was a lot of influence from 'Tenchu.' We even pondered making 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' a part of the 'Tenchu' series at first.
I've observed some surprise in the reactions so far from people who were not aware that FromSoftware does other things besides 'Souls.' This serves as a reminder to me that we have an established reputation - and that we should work on different games so we can be more flexible and build a broader profile.
Perhaps the tranquillity of 'Deracine' heightens the violence in 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,' while the intensity of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' makes 'Deracine' all the more serene.
Unlike most kids in Japan, I didn't have a dream. I wasn't ambitious.
When I was working on the first 'Dark Souls' - as far back as 'Demon's Souls,' actually - I didn't expect the player community to come up with speedrun contests or any of the strange new ways to play the games.
Ever since 'Demon's Souls,' I've really been pursuing making games that give players a sense of accomplishment by overcoming tremendous odds.
A shinobi embodies an archetype that is able to use everything at their disposal. They don't pick a fighting style; they use every means and everything they can get their hands on. They exploit every weakness.
The intention behind the high difficulty of the games I direct is to evoke a feeling of joy and accomplishment in the player when they overcome these challenges.
The more time I spend working on 'Sekiro,' the deeper I sink into this zone of blood and gore and conflict. But if I want to get out of it, I can walk over to the other side of the studio and ease myself into a completely different feeling when I work on 'Deracine.'
I believe there are aspects of the narrative that become easier to understand by shifting the focus of the story to the characters. Illustrating growth and change in the protagonist becomes a simpler process, and these changes are, in fact, one of the themes of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice''s story.
