Elden Ring's director says he could "learn a lot" from playing other Souls-like games.
Hidetaka Miyazaki is often credited with establishing the "SoulsBorne" genre at large with games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Despite having largely carved out a space for difficult RPGs, the Elden Ring director and FromSoftware recently revealed he thinks he can "learn a lot" from playing Souls-like games developed by other studios.
In a new interview with Gōuhuǒ yíngdì (and translated by @swordandflower on Twitter), Miyazaki revealed he personally plays a lot of Souls-like games, when asked about his stance on other games in the genre he helped establish. "For myself, I play this type of game a good amount, as a player. There are a lot of games like this so it makes me very happy," Miyazaki said.
"Besides, as a developer, I could learn a lot from them. It’s a great opportunity. Initially when we developed Demon Souls, we were just following the trend at the time and making what the players wanted. We developers should learn and explore together since we all share the same goal of bringing a better experience to the players," Miyazaki added on the matter.
In just the last year alone, we've seen new games like Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen release, both of which mimic the sort of combat, difficulty, checkpointing, and narrative design we've seen in FromSoftware games over the last decade or so. It's interesting to note that Miyazaki doesn't see these sorts of games as competitors to FromSoftware's games like Elden Ring, but he rather welcomes them.
In terms of FromSoftware's own games though, the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree is set to release just next month on June 21, and it'll be the only DLC that Elden Ring receives. That doesn't mean FromSoftware is ruling out another fully-fledged Elden Ring sequel, so we might not be done with The Lands Between for good just yet.
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