Dark Souls III Director Hidetaka Miyazaki Talks DLC; Future Games, Armored Core and Much More

Giuseppe Nelva September 21, 2016 9:59 AM EST

During a preview event in Tokyo hosted by Bandai Namco, DualShockers took part in a round-table interview with Dark Souls III Director and From Software President Hidetaka Miyazaki, focused on the game’s expansion Ashes of Ariandel and on the studio’s future plans.

Due to the round-table nature of the interview, questions were asked by DualShockers and by other media outlets present at the event.

Q: Will there be any improvement done to Dark Souls III to support the additional hardware power of the PS4 Pro?

A: Currently From Software and Bandai Namco have been communicating on how we should deal with the PS4 Pro. That includes not just whether we’ll support it or not, but also what we should do on a graphics level, what should we do with the frames per second and that kind of things. So yeah, we have been talking about it, but we haven’t yet decided anything officially.

Q: Are you approaching the writing of the DLCs as the end of the Souls series?

A: That’s not actually the case. What we’re trying to do is approaching the big theme from the main games from a different perspective. With a “different perspective” I mean that we’ve been using the painted world as a different perspective in order to describe the main game’s theme symbolically.

Q: Are there going to be more Dark Souls games in the future?

A: Personally, I don’t feel like creating new Souls games, however, I don’t want to completely deny the potential of other developers from From Software bringing back the Dark Souls franchise in the future.

While I’d personally like to end the Dark Souls franchise, I’d still feel sad doing so. While I might not work on Dark Souls games myself, I would bring some of the good things from them, like in-game elements or product development experience to new Dark Souls-like games or franchises in the future.

When I say Dark Souls-like games, they could be dark fantasy-like games with an element of sense of accomplishment due to overcoming difficulties, which is very unique to to the Souls franchise.

Q: Is that because often in Japan a lot of companies tend to make a successful franchise and then they keep making entries in the same franchise forever?

A: It’s very difficult to answer to this kind of question, but whatever the case, I’m not denying the value of bringing new installments to the same franchise. There are a lot of things that can be polished by doing so, or there could be things that can be accomplished just by bringing new chapters to a series.

I’m not sure about other publishers or developers, but at least From Software believes that all the things that we have learned in past titles can be best reflected in future titles only by working on new franchises and new series.

Q: Speaking of Dark Souls-like games, it seems that after the success of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, they kind of created almost their own genre, even other other publishers are making Dark Souls-like games. For instance with Ni-Oh by Koei Tecmo, i very much felt that I was playing something very similar to Dark Souls in the Sengoku era. How do you feel about that?

A: I never thought of having created a new genre, and i’m sure that in the past many people have thought about creating very challenging games like Dark Souls, I’m assuming that I was simply the pioneer in that sense.

If I have created the environment encouraging other developer to work on other Dark Souls-like games, that’s an honor for me.

Q: I’m not just talking about the challenge, though. I’m talking about very similar game mechanics.

A: It’s difficult to answer this, but even if the same mechanics get implemented in other games by other publisher of developers, it still gives us (From Software) good clues, because they have been implemented based on a different perspective. This gives us clues on how we can approach other titles that we will be working on in the future, so it’s a good thing.

But just to clarify, I never thought that other games copied our titles.

Q: is your next game going to be dark fantasy as well? Or maybe there will be mecha in it?

A: There are several titles that we are currently working on, and those are not just just dark fantasy or mecha games. Some of those are dark fantasy, some could involve mecha… But one new title that we’ve been working on will probably comply with the expectations of the fans in a straightforward manner.

A last thing is that another title will probably be a little bit weird. When we’ll actually announce that title, probably the fans will react like “oh, what the hell is this game that Miyazaki has created?”

Q: Is it weird that From Software is creating it, or just weird in itself?

A: When i say weird, I mean that the genre that we’re trying may be a little bit weird. Not only that, but the game’s content might be a little weird.

I just want to clarify that we’re always serious when working on product development, however that game might be seen as a very weird game, but we’re still very serious about it.

Q: Is it a very brightly-colored majokko [Magical girl] game?

A: (Laughs) I think we need more experience in order to challenge that specific genre.

There still are several obstacles we need to overcome before we can announce those new titles, so we’re not sure how many more years we need to development them, but we’re looking forward to announce them in the future.

Q: Armored Core?

A: We are working on Armored Core.

Q: How is the new Armored Core different from the current Armored Core?

A: No comment. That’s all.

Just for your information, even during interviews with Japanese media, I’ve always said that I wanted to work on new Armored Core titles, so I want to clarify that I’m still interested in working on new Armored Core games.

Editor’s Note: after the interview was conducted, From Software released a statement to Japanese media, mentioning that Miyazaki-san actually did not admit that a Armored Core game is currently in development, but that his statement should be interpreted as the mention of the will to continue to work on the series in the future, but nothing has been decided.

That said, we’re reporting the conversation exactly as it happened, leaving the interpretation to you.

Q: Should Dark Souls III‘s DLCs be considered like a sequel of the main game, or they are completely separate story-wise?

A: The theme of the DLC is actually independent from the main game. The theme of the main game is actually completed within the main game itself.

Q: Why did you choose the painted world for the DLC?

A: Although the DLC takes place in the painted world, it’s different from the painted world in the original game. The theme of the painted world matches other things we’re trying to do with the DLC, and that’s why we decided to bring the painted world back in that sense.