In the first part of the Dark Souls 2 feature, originally published in the December issue of Edge Magazine, Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director and creative force behind Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls, revealed that he will not be involved in the development of the game, and instead, will serve as a supervisor, focusing on production scheduling and the game’s unique online connectivity.
Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura will replace Miyazaki as co-directors on Dark Souls 2. “The decisions about the new assignments,” Miyazaki told Edge, “was not made by me; it was made by FromSoftware and Namco Bandai as a whole.”
Namco Bandi producer Takeshi Miyazoe confirms Miyazaki’s statement, explaining the decision is part of a new direction for the series. “In order to maintain the expectations and satisfaction and the rewards that players experience, this was the right time to bring in the new characteristics and taste[s of the directors] for this series to continue on evolving.”
When Dark Souls launched, players criticized the game for being incomplete, requiring several patches to fix the problems. “I really regretted that, Miyazaki said, “so I reviewed all those kinds of things that I worked on in Dark Souls to make sure that Dark Souls 2 is ready on time.”
Miyazaki also made sure that Dark Souls 2’s multiplayer uses a server-based network instead of the peer-to-peer system seen in the last two games.
“It’s true that I’m sad about not being involved in the development of Dark Souls 2,” the former director said, “because I’ve worked on Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls’ development for the past five years. I really love those two titles; however, maybe this is the time to have new inspiration, so I’m fine about that.”
That new inspiration could be a result of spending so much time working on the unforgiving world of the Souls series. In an answer to an unrelated question, he said, “sometimes I’d like to work on a warmer game – not necessarily casual, but warmer in terms of the atmosphere and the environment.”
Miyazaki revealed he is currently working on an unannounced project as a full-time director, but refused to comment on it any further.
Source: Edge Online
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