Famed FromSoftware president and Elden Ring director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, revealed that he is absolutely terrible at video games and used every advantage possible in order to beat his own game.
In the lengthy interview with The Guardian, Miyazaki explained that during the lead up to the release of the now critically acclaimed Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, he took it upon himself to completely finish Elden Ring itself but described his struggles with its difficulty.
“I want to preface this by saying I absolutely suck at video games, so my approach or play style was to use everything I have at my disposal, all the assistance, every scrap of aid that the game offers, and also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game … the freedom and open-world nature of Elden Ring perhaps lowered the barrier to entry, and I might be the one who’s benefiting the most from that, as a player, more than anyone else.”
Miyazaki revealed that during the lead up to the release of a new title he plays the game diligently and takes a very hands on approach. After release, however, he refrains from touching the game for fear of exposing himself to irreversible flaws.
“Leading up to the release of any game, I’ll be very hands-on playing it and getting as much time on it as much as possible… But after the release, I tend to not want to touch it, because I know I’m going to either find things that I left on the table or issues that will bug 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 to not play.”
It can be quite humbling to know that the very mind that has created so many oppressive and difficult games also himself is tortured by his own creations. This news can also be viewed as the ultimate vindication for players who also use as many options and advantages as possible in order to complete these games. If the director himself uses these tools to make the experience more bearable then why should you feel ashamed for using them?
Miyazaki went on to describe his philosophy on failure and how he deliberately attempts to find places where failure can happen so that improvements can be made and the studio can progress as developers, “you have to find the right project to allow for failure: whether it’s smaller in scope or scale, or it’s a small module within something bigger, there needs to be room for that. I think that’s where a lot of young game directors will be challenged and will be able to 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.”
This philosophy of failure as a learning tool to foster growth is reflected in FromSoftware’s many difficult titles. Most recently, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree has seen backlash from some fans over its brutal difficulty leading to an update which makes the early parts of the DLC a bit easier to manage. FromSoftware was very careful not to fundamentally change how bosses work, rather giving players a few more tools to boost their chances of success. Perhaps this reflects their philosophy of allowing players a bit more room for failure than was present before.
Elden Ring is one of the biggest releases in the past decade with the DLC alone selling over five million copies in just three days. In the interview Miyazaki also hinted at potential for an adaptation of Elden Ring in some other form of media to carry on this success.
“I don’t see any reason to deny another interpretation or adaptation of Elden Ring, a movie for example. But I don’t think myself, or FromSoftware, have the knowledge or ability to produce something in a different medium. So that’s where a very strong partner would come into play. We’d have to build a lot of trust and agreement on whatever it is we’re trying to achieve, but there’s interest, for sure.”
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