But I started considering ways to give the players space to do special things like that after the games were launched, so in that sense, my expectations started to meet the fans. When I was working on the first Dark Souls - as far back as Demon's Souls, actually - I didn't expect the player community to come up with speedrun contests or any of the strange new ways to play the games. **Were you ever expecting the series' fans to create challenges for themselves, such as the speedruns and alternative control playthroughs?**That's been a real surprise. Since I started working in games professionally, I've had a lot of opportunities to travel abroad and see buildings and landmarks in Europe and even further afield, churches and such, and they serve as great influences too. I've been familiar with western fantasy novels since I was a boy. What draws you to that?**A lot of it comes from experiences I had during my childhood, including through fiction. **Your games embrace a very European visual style, rather than the anime aesthetic found in a lot of Japanese games.
Rather than the game itself automatically telling the story, the player gets more value from it when they themselves find out hints of plot from items or side-characters they encounter in the world. That's actually my biggest reason for focusing on environmental and subtle storytelling. Another side is, I want to leave the interpretation of the world's stories to the player. What appeals to you about that approach?**First of all, I don't dislike direct storytelling - people seem to think that about my games! Actually, the truth is, I'm just not good at implementing direct narrative in my games.
**The Souls series is known for environmental storytelling and implied lore, rather than a direct narrative players work through. Hollowing is still in the game - I personally like it - but it's now more as one of the pillars of the storyline. So I decided to add a new state instead, the Lord of Cinder, when you have 'Embers' empowering you. They're playing a character they've spent so much time creating, down to facial detail, and they don't want to lose that. What drove that change?**One of the complaints I hear from fans is that they don't want to be 'ugly' when they're Hollow. **One of the main differences between Dark Souls III and its predecessors appears to be less emphasis on Hollowing. Each player should come up with their own approach to conquering environments in Dark Souls III. Thieves don't have particularly powerful, big attacks, whereas charactets who can use magic, like the pyromancer, have an advantage - their weapons and items give them an elemental edge.
If you choose thief, for example, you'll need to be a lot faster and more careful than if you chose a warrior. There are different approaches, in both your route through certain areas of the game and how you maximise the attributes of each class.
I want players to consider how to complete each stage using each class, utilising their strengths and weaknesses. They can drastically impact the overall 'difficulty' of the game. **Do you intend for player classes to be balanced, depending on player skill? Or are some deliberately underpowered, to create that greater sense of accomplishment?**It really does depend on the classes.