Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
To be honest, I'm really not interested on how I'm viewed as. The only thing I'm interested in is to keep creating something special. Whether that something is synonymous to me or not is really none of my concern.
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.
The construction of 'Sekiro''s world is based on that of traditional Sengoku, or medieval Japan. To that end, we made sure to reference a lot of written materials on that period as well as actually visit several locations.
For me, 'Dark Souls III' is the end, but that doesn't mean the end for 'Dark Souls.' If someone other than myself, like another staff member, wants to make a 'Dark Souls,' then I don't want to deny others from making future installments.
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.
Development of 'Bloodborne' and sinking into the battle of the hunter and the unique horror world was not only an exciting experience but it also allowed me to re-acknowledge the charm of a fantasy world and the intrigue of 'Dark Souls' for me.
From Software believes all the things we have learned in the past titles can be best reflected in the future only by starting work on a new franchise or series. That's the philosophy behind us trying to make a decision about leaving the 'Dark Souls' franchise.
The grappling hook allows for versatile and dynamic movement through the map, while a variety of shinobi-esque tools allow for all sorts of tricks and finesse. These are very important elements of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice''s gameplay and the protagonist's nature.
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.'
The main concept of 'Dark Souls III' is the first flame and its successors; the world has been in this cycle of reigniting the flame since the first game, but now it seems to be disappearing, almost dying. We're trying to draw out the aspects of this withering flame.
We do need this diversity in the industry. Regardless of what From Software is doing, we need people making battle royale games and live services, and we need people making single-player focused experiences. We feel that this diversity is what will keep everyone going.
From the initial design stages of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,' we had the idea of the player being able to move dynamically through a detailed, multi-layered map. We found that a 'shinobi' type character was the key to achieving this in a way that was both realistic and cool.
Our strengths or maybe our characteristic as a developer firm software used to maybe be known as a studio that put out unexpected, almost, like, quirky, very unique titles. Not that we've lost that charm in recent years, but that's something that I really, really liked about our studio.
Dark Souls is in some ways an incomplete game, and I like to think that it has been completed by players, by their discoveries, as they moved along. I'd love to say that the nature of this incompleteness was completely deliberate, but it is both deliberate and by accident in different ways.
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.
I am conscious of that when I make these games: I try to make a game that has beautiful open spaces, gaps, room for players to enjoy it in ways that were not authored. I never want it to be where you have to follow the rules completely, where you have to do things exactly as the designers intended.
It's quite obvious that the 'Dark Souls' franchise is reaching a turning point, and I'm happy that I have a greater budget for the third game, as well as the creative freedom to make my own decisions. But if there were some restrictions about what I was creating, I definitely wouldn't want to work on it.
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.
We always look back at our back catalogue for inspiration for new titles, but when it comes to very old things like the 'King's Field' series, I'm concerned about just mimicking the style of what Naotoshi Zin, the founder of FromSoftware, created for the PlayStation original. I would rather not go back to it simply out of respect.