Dark Souls creator isn’t sure ‘how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2’

Dark Souls creator and the president of developer FromSoftware, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has been speaking about Dark Souls 2’s impact on the series, and says that he’s not sure “how or if” the series would have progressed in the manner it did without the divisive second installment.

For anyone unfamiliar, Dark Souls 2’s reception amongst the fanbase was, and still is, mixed, to say the least. While many love it, it’s also received its fair share of criticism over the years, largely due to its differences from the first game, like the Estus Flask (a replenishable healing item) taking forever to actually heal you, and alterations to the invincibility frames granted by dodge rolls. Notably, it’s also the only soulsborne game that wasn’t directed by Miyazaki, who instead served as a supervisor on the title. 

Even so, Miyazaki has a lot of love for the controversial sequel. In a new interview with IGN, he referred to it as “a really great project for us,” and added: “I think without it, we wouldn’t have had a lot of the connections and a lot of the ideas that went forward and carried the rest of the series.”

Furthermore, Miyazaki believes that having different directors on the game – Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura – meant that the sequel could introduce new ideas that may not have been included otherwise. He added that there’s “really no way of telling how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2.”

Given how much more open Dark Souls 2’s world was than its predecessor, it’s easy to see how it could have had an influence on FromSoftware’s 2022 role-playing game, Elden Ring, which was released to exceptional critical acclaim. 

Elden Ring’s paid expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, received its first trailer this week, along with a release date. It’s set to launch on June 21.

For more games like Dark Souls, be sure to check out our roundup of the best soulslike games for your next challenge. Alternatively, if you’re looking to expand your PC gaming library, be sure to check out our list of the best PC games.