In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Dark Souls creator and From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki spoke a little bit about the influences and principles behind developing his action RPG series.
Though some have often drawn comparisons to The Legend of Zelda series, Miyazaki mentioned feeling “deeply unworthy” of such a comparison, noting that any similarities simply come from the fact that Zelda became a “textbook for 3D action games.” Miyazaki also discussed another blatant difference between Dark Souls and Zelda, namely his preference to not provide players with an in-game map.
Here’s Miyazaki’s full thoughts on the comparison between Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda:
“When I was a student, The Legend of Zelda was truly monumental, so to be perfectly honest, I feel deeply unworthy of the comparison. The Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls are different games belonging to different genres though, and they’re guided by different concepts of game design. They don’t need to aspire to the same ideals. If there are similarities, they probably stem from the fact that The Legend of Zelda became a sort of textbook for 3D action games.”
Next, while Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma’s dislike of letting players getting lost in a game was brought up, the Souls series seems to come from an opposite approach, giving players very little direction and no in-game map. When asked about this extreme difference in design, Miyazaki replied with the following:
“Our goal was to allow players to do what they want, define their own goals, make their own discoveries, embrace their own values, and find their own interpretations. Core to that was the importance of getting lost. This gives value and meaning to finding one’s way. Also, we’re just not very nimble when it comes to giving good guidance, and rather than try to overcome our own shortcomings, we decided to focus on things that we were good at.”
To read the entire interview with Miyazaki, you can go here.
