Dark Souls series and Elden Ring creator Hidetaki Miyazaki recently talked about how he is looking to other games for new ways of encouraging player interaction, citing the beleaguered Escape from Tarkov as one such example. Miyazaki stated that he’s more than willing to spurn a few adages of game development with FromSoftware, Elden Ring, and the general future.
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Speaking with IGN, Miyazaki understands Escape from Tarkov well beyond its oft-referred to brutalism and frustration, referring to other players as ‘resources’ that are interacted with. Escape from Tarkov enjoys injecting other players into quests necessary for progression, turning them into a quest object that actually fights back versus the standard action-RPG player versus NPC dynamic. With every raid becoming a fierce battle of survival and the more recent inclusion of VOIP, a heft of Escape from Tarkov’s fountain of content is other players.
When pressed on whether the creator had any plans for Elden Ring, what with its runaway commercial success, Miyazaki had a few words that the industry may wisely heed. ‘Obviously, Elden Ring is a commercial success — everybody’s aware about that, but it doesn’t really affect what we are going to create next. We basically keep creating the game that we want to create, and that’s our policy.’ This interview was posted a day before the announcement of the Elden Ring expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree.
Miyazaki’s statement spurns the content creation idea that rings true in video games, music, and even Hollywood as of late, where when presented with the decision to either explore or exploit, often exploit is picked as it’s considered the safest return on investment. This is why we’ll likely see Call of Duty iterations until the end of time, and Nintendo’s favorite plumber is going to seep into every available piece of media. It’s considered a safe investment, even if it may bore the more jaded fans. However, if Elden Ring’s numbers are anything to go by, creating the game you want to make may be the secret to pleasing fans.
