Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama might have a strategy for helping video game studios stay afloat as the industry at large grapples with layoffs and closures. Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, he says, is a perfect example of it.
"The balance of routine and preserving the style of your games is relevant," Toyama said in a new interview with VGC, asked about his reaction to Tango Gameworks shutting down. Parent company Microsoft closed the Hi-Fi Rush studio in May, despite executives saying they "couldn’t be happier" with the studio's latest release back in 2023. Studio founder Shinji Mikami, who also created Resident Evil, called Microsoft's decision "sad."
"You look at an example like FromSoftware," Toyama told VGC, "they keep making different games but certain styles and aspects of their games stay the same. That’s an obvious example of how a studio is successful. Not changing everything every time might be the key to life and surviving."
Players have recognized this aspect of FromSoftware games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls, going back to the studio's earliest title, the 1994 action RPG King's Field. Though 20 years can shift target demographics, staff members, and certainly ideas, FromSoftware has nevertheless dedicated each of its major releases to refining the feel and fantasy of the games that came before it. The studio efficiently reuses some assets and concepts in its games, and Elden Ring director and FromSoft president Hidetaka Miyazaki prides himself on keeping "conservative" expectations in general. So far, it's all helped make FromSoftware more successful, and more stable, on the back of good games.
Toyama will soon release the bloody action-horror game Slitterhead. Much like the way Mikami left Capcom to found Tango, Toyama left Sony to found Bokeh Game Studio in 2020. The developer will launch Slitterhead, its first game, on November 8.
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