Elden Ring Director Hidetaka Miyazaki Comments On Game Difficulty
Software’s Hidetaka Miyazaki, game director of the recently released Elden Ring, spoke about the discussion about the game’s difficulty. Speaking with New Yorker Miyazaki said he felt sorry for those who hesitated to play From Software games due to their difficulty but stated that From Software had no plans to change anything because the feeling of overcoming difficulties is the studio’s “identity”.
“I feel guilty about anyone who thinks that my games have too much to overcome,” said Miyazaki. “I just want as many players as possible to experience the joy of overcoming challenges.”
He added: “We are always striving for improvement, but specifically in our games, it is the difficulty that gives meaning to the experience. So we’re not ready to give it up at the moment. This is our identity.”
In Elden Ring and other From Software games, you die many. Miyazaki also commented on the phenomenon, stating that the team tried to purposefully design Elden Ring in such a way that the experience of death and rebirth is pleasurable, as opposed to real-life where you die and the lights go out forever.
“When I play these games I think this is how Identifier want to die – funny or interesting, or it will create a story that I can share,” he said. “Death and rebirth, trying and overcoming—we want this cycle to be enjoyable. In life, death is terrible. In the game, it could be something else.”
The full interview in The New Yorker is a great read that sheds a lot more light on Elden Ring and Miyazaki himself.go read it here.
In GameSpot’s review of Elden Ring, the game received a rare 10/10 rating. Reviewer Tamur Hussain said, “Elden Ring takes the pieces of what came before and turns them into something that will go down in history as one of the greatest achievements of all time: a triumph in design and creativity, and an open-world game that distinguishes himself for what he doesn’t do as much as for what he does.”
