Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Game Design Secrets of Elden Ring | Games

Tit famously challenged dark fantasy epic Elden Ring to be the second best-selling game in the world in 2022, and the release of its expansion Shadow of the Erdtree last Friday has everyone debating again whether it’s very difficult. Every game developed by FromSoftware since 2009’s Demon’s Souls has inspired this discourse, and I won’t go into it because it’s neither interesting nor particularly important: these games are what they are, and you can either get on board or, reasonably enough, leave.

That vision is immediately conveyed by the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki – also president of FromSoftware since 2014, having made his (and the developer’s) name with Dark Souls in 2011. It’s tough, sure, but there’s also a element of faith and encouragement in this approach to game design: Elden Ring and its other games believe that if you just persevere and call on other players for help, you will eventually triumph and feel sweeter.

Miyazaki is an interesting character and one of the most influential artists in games, and indeed entertainment; he was listed in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people last year. I first interviewed him in 2010, shortly before Demon’s Souls was released in Europe, and following his career has been one of my highlights. I interviewed him again in Los Angeles recently, and it may comfort some of us to know that playing his games is sometimes difficult for him, too.

“Leading up to the release of each game, I’m going to be very hands-on playing it and getting as much time into it as possible,” he told me. “But after publication, I tend not to want to touch it because I know I’m either going to find things I left on the table or issues that will bother me. And once I become a player, I’m powerless to do anything significant to change it. So once a game is out in the wild, I tend not to play.

“But in preparation for Shadow of the Erdtree, I played through the main story of the Elden Ring. I want to preface this by saying that I am absolutely immersed in video games, so my approach or play style was to use everything at my disposal, all the help, every scrap of help that the game has to offer and also all the knowledge that I have. have as a game architect … the freedom and open-world nature of Elden Ring probably lowered the barrier to entry, and I might be the one who’s benefiting from that more, as a player, than anyone else.”

Hidetaka Miyazaki at the E3 exhibition in California in 2013. Photo: Daniel Boczarski/WireImage

I was very amused by the image of Miyazaki, controller in hand, tormented by the very world he was creating (and all its imperfections, which only he would notice). This is true dedication to his game design philosophy of improvement through failure – a belief that seems to permeate his entire life. Miyazaki is an extremely hands-on director, and all of his games bear the unmistakable imprint of his influence, but he’s also tried to pass on his knowledge and artistic approach to others at FromSoftware in the 10 years he’s been its president – ensuring that they too have room to fail.

“The budgets, the scale, the scope, everything has grown to a point where the room for failure is not as tolerated as I think it was in the past,” he told me. “FromSoftware has its own way of hedging risks, so to speak, in that most of our projects have a partner that finances the project… From a business management perspective, we’re not betting everything on a single project. At the same time, you have to find the right project to allow for failure: whether it’s smaller in scope or scale, or a small module within something bigger, there has to be room for that. I think a lot of new game directors will be challenged here and can learn from it. Making sure you understand and identify where those pockets of failure can be allowed is how we try to grow our talent.”

Miyazaki sees Elden Ring as a “turning point” for FromSoftware: “Before and after Elden Ring, there will be a clear difference … you can see this in [2023’s mech game] Armored Core VI, I’d say. He hopes that soon we will see games from other directors in the company, not only from himself. “Where FromSoftware is right now, in terms of scale, I’d say Elden Ring is really the frontier. We’ve leveraged every resource and talent we have access to … scaling it even further, I would have my concerns. Maybe having multiple projects is the next stage, where some of the other younger talent can have the opportunity to manage and direct game design for a smaller project.”

Shadow of the Erdtree is the end of Elden Ring for now – Dark Souls is an exception to the rule, but in general Miyazaki doesn’t make sequels. Demon’s Souls, Sekiro, Bloodborne and now Elden Ring all stand as stand alone works and one gets the impression he likes it that way. But, interestingly, he wouldn’t mind someone else doing more with The Lands Between – in a different medium.

“I see no reason to rule out another interpretation or adaptation of the Elden Ring, a film for example,” he told me. “But I don’t think that I, or FromSoftware, have the knowledge or the ability to produce something in another medium. So this is where a very strong partner would come into play. We’re going to have to build a lot of trust and agreement for whatever we’re trying to achieve, but there’s interest, of course.”

If any Suls-nerd readers work for feature film production companies, consider this your chance to jump.

What to play

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. Photo: Nintendo

And now for something completely different, as they say: Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD came out this week, a welcome blast from the past (I reviewed it for IGN, back in the day). Originally released in 2013 on the Nintendo 3DS, this spooky character-driven caper is better than any Ghostbusters game ever made.

Mario’s spooky little brother has five detailed diorama mansions to scavenge for ghosts and secrets. The animation is second to none here – each ghost oozes personality along with all the ectoplasm, and Luigi himself is an underrated slapstick comedy star.

Available at: Nintendo Switch
Estimated game time:
12 hours

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What to read

Life From You. Photo: Paradox Interactive
  • Don’t forget Paradox’s upcoming competitor to The Sims, Life From You? It was supposed to come out this month, but it was endlessly delayed a few weeks ago, and then suddenly canceled — and now its developer has been shut down. The Sims has spent decades unchallenged in the life-sim genre: perhaps now it will remain so for another decade.

  • Very popular broadcaster Dr. Disrespect – real name Guy Beahm – was permanently banned from Twitch in 2020 (he has since streamed on YouTube). For years, no one knew why — but now The Verge reports that he was caught sending inappropriate messages to a minor using Twitch’s Whispers chat system, two former Twitch employees claim. After Midnight Society, a studio co-founded by the broadcaster, cut ties with him on Monday night, Beahm, 42, released a lengthy statement to X admitting to “casual, mutual conversations” with a minor, but strongly denied any criminal wrongdoing. One of his sponsors, Turtle Beach, has also dropped him.

  • Ringer released this noise of a feature about transient multiplayer connection forged from games such as Elden Ring and Dragon’s Dogma, by regular Guardian games contributor Lewis Gordon.

What to click

Block of questions

Hidetaka Miyazaki accepts the Original Property Award for Elden Ring at the 2023 Bafta Games Awards. Photo: Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA

I’m going to shamelessly use the newsletter format to take on a recent quote from Hidetaka Miyazaki, answering a question I’ve always wanted to ask him:

“When we talk about artistic inspirations, we often ask about things: movies, books, games, visual art. But it’s often the people in our lives who inspire us. Is there such a person in your life, someone you respect?”

His response: “One that comes to mind is the former president of FromSoftware, [Naotoshi] Zin-san. He directed the first game produced by FromSoftware, which was [bleak medieval action game] King’s Field, close to the launch of the PlayStation 1. I really like his world building and his way of thinking, his approach to things. So even now, when we catch up or have a conversation, there are always some lessons for me. Of course, I’ve never told him that I respect him and feel that way, so if this interview is somehow translated into Japanese and he sees it, I don’t know what it means…”

If you have a question about the Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

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