Hidetaka Miyazaki: Creator, Collaborator, and Collector

Video games have been a part of pop-culture since their conception. They have served as a form of entertainment for many and one aspect that constantly draws people to them is the challenge they can present. Difficult games always seem to be popular and one type of games known as soulslike is at the top of the this genre. Soulslike games are very difficult RPG type games with expansive environments and lore. The name primarily comes from the Dark Souls games and their predecessor Demon Souls. These souls games have so many differences between them such as the type of fantasy setting, the gameplay mechanics, and the monster and boss designs; they have so many innovative features making them all extremely unique. The one thing they all have in common is their director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. He is responsible for Demon Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring, all of which are extremely successful soulslike games. 

There are a few reasons why the souls games stand out so much. One of the most notable stand-out features is their difficulty and gameplay which has made them extremely notorious for how hard they are. Miyazaki says that he didn't create the games to be difficult but rather he wanted to create gameplay that gives players a true challenge and a sense of accomplishment upon beating the challenge. In addition to the difficult aspect of the games there is the mechanics of the gameplay. The mechanics differ widely between each of the games but what is very interesting about Miyazaki's process of creating the games, is that he comes up with the gameplay mechanics first and builds the world around them. A prominent example of this is the respawn checkpoints in all of the games. The most recent game Elden Ring uses checkpoints called Graces. The mechanic of this came first and drawing from other aspects of the lore their existence and gameplay mechanic can be explained by the in-game lore. Other games likes Sekiro also draw some lore from their mechanics, the parry and stance system in Sekiro gave way to the shinobi type gameplay.

The other main standout feature of these games is of course the lore. The games have a very unique way of storytelling; they are extremely vague and the lore is not outright told to you, it is revealed through subtle dialogue and descriptions of items found in the game. Miyazaki explain his reason for writing this way is that as a child he only had access to books he couldn't fully understand so he used his imagination to fill in the blanks and basically created his own stories. Since this was a form of storytelling he was familiar with, it found itself within his games. In his late college years he continued to read, he had quite an interest in the works of George R. R. Martin and stories like Berserk and Devilman. He attributes much of his storytelling inspiration to these works. These dark fantasy aspects are very apparent in his works. In the Bloodborne DLC there is a boss fight with The Orphan of Kos, this boss was literally just born from its dead mother and immediately gets attacked by the player. This is obviously a horribly dark part of the story and paints the player in a dark light. This ambiguity of good and evil further illustrates many of the dark fantasy storytelling he has drawn from other sources.

In addition to these direct influences, Miyazaki also works with other to help create his worlds. In his recent game he actually worked with George R. R. Martin in creating the lore. Miyazaki created the world the player is in and all the characters and then worked with George R. R. Martin to create the backstory to the game. 

Many creators create their products before giving them meaning. Miyazaki creates his gameplay and creates the lore around it giving the gameplay mechanics meaning. In a similar vein songwriter Nick Cave talks about a similar process with writing his songs. He explains how he can write entire songs while having no idea what the meaning of it may be, he then builds the meaning of the song around what he has written and already created much like how Miyazaki creates his meaning/lore around his already created gameplay. This way of creating is always super interesting and takes a real creative mind to find meaning in something that is seemingly meaningless.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq_mpGh31bA

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/miyazaki-vs-ueda