18 Facts About Hidetaka Miyazaki

Hidetaka Miyazaki is a Japanese creative director, designer, scriptwriter, and president of the video game company FromSoftware.

Hidetaka Miyazaki joined the company in 2004 and was a designer for the Armored Core series before receiving wider recognition for creating the Dark Souls series.

Hidetaka Miyazaki later attended Keio University and graduated with a degree in social science, later getting a job as an account manager for the US based Oracle Corporation to pay for his sister's college tuition fees.

Hidetaka Miyazaki found that few game companies would employ him at age 29 with no experience working as a designer, with one of the few being FromSoftware.

Hidetaka Miyazaki began working there as a planner on Armored Core: Last Raven in 2004, joining the game's development midway through.

Hidetaka Miyazaki later directed Armored Core 4 and its direct sequel, Armored Core: For Answer.

Hidetaka Miyazaki believed the company's outlook on the game allowed him to take full control of the project as any further failed ideas would not hurt it.

Hidetaka Miyazaki asked about the possibility of developing a game for eighth-generation consoles, and the concept of Bloodborne developed from there.

Development ran parallel to that of Dark Souls II, which Hidetaka Miyazaki supervised only as he was unable to direct both games simultaneously.

Hidetaka Miyazaki served as the initial director of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon before Masaru Yamamura assumed the role later in development.

Hidetaka Miyazaki was an avid reader as a child despite his parents being unable to afford him many books.

Hidetaka Miyazaki frequently borrowed from his local library, including English language fantasy and science fiction that he did not fully understand, allowing his imagination to fill in the blanks by using the accompanying illustrations.

Once exposed to video games, Hidetaka Miyazaki became a fan of Ico, the early Dragon Quest games, and The Legend of Zelda and King's Field video game series, all of which he later cited were direct influences on his games.

Hidetaka Miyazaki is inspired by architecture, especially of European origin, and often uses it in his games as a way of environmental storytelling.

Hidetaka Miyazaki stated that the difficulty of his games have no intention of being that way compared to others.

Hidetaka Miyazaki stated that death in his games is used as a trial and error learning tool, adding that the idea became accepted by the public following the success of Demon's Souls.

Hidetaka Miyazaki stated that he does not dislike direct storytelling but prefers players to interpret it for themselves, as they get more value from it when they find out hints of plot from items or side-characters.

Hidetaka Miyazaki was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards.