Elden Ring, Sekiro, and the Dark Souls trilogy can be darkly comedic at times when grueling boss battles are cut short by unbelievably bad luck or when enemies ragdoll after giving you a fine beating. But the games' creative director doesn't aim to make these games "funny," which kinda makes them funnier.
When asked about the unexpected laughs in the studio's catalog, FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki told Eurogamer that only "some areas are designed to be funny and with humor in mind." Despite these intentions, the creative director feels that parts of the games that were made "seriously" or that come from a "dark place" are often misconstrued as humorous. Getting squashed by a giant monkey 15 times tends to elicit a broken, almost defeated smile, after all.
"But it's not a calculated thing," Miyazaki continues, "we don't set out to make a lot of these games and characters funny. I think it is just interpreted this way and is construed in that way due to the player and the environment they’re playing in."
That phenomenon probably comes from the same place as happy-crying or nervous laughter - where our bodies try to regulate emotions by producing an opposite, also as intense feeling. Sometimes we're so tense fighting Malenia for the umpteenth time, you just have to laugh it off. "A lot of it is not intentional," Miyazaki says.
Miyazaki also spilled details about Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, calling it the studio's largest expansion so far. How does the team pump out great games so often? Empowering and retaining talent, according to the famed director.
Miyazaki doesn’t feel pressured by competing Soulslikes either.
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