Hidetaka Miyazaki on The Duskbloods and Themes of Ruin
FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki discusses his new multiplayer game The Duskbloods, his thematic focus on decay and rebirth, and the philosophy
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the 51-year-old president of FromSoftware, is releasing a new multiplayer Switch 2 exclusive called The Duskbloods. The director, whose 2022 game Elden Ring sold over 30 million copies, describes feeling nervous about this departure from his studio's typical single-player format.
Miyazaki rarely gives interviews and never appears on camera. Speaking softly in a Tokyo conference room overlooked by a statue of an Elden Ring boss, he explained the new project. The Duskbloods is an eight-player game where participants fight ghoulish horrors and each other across three phases, culminating in a final three-way battle. Survivors are whittled down each round.
A Shift to Multiplayer
This move is a risk for Miyazaki, whose audience craves dense, single-player adventures like 2015's Bloodborne. The Duskbloods instead focuses on player-versus-player conflict, temporary alliances, and even a betrothal system. "I feel it's less a traditional romance and more a sense of secure trust with a character in the world," Miyazaki told The Guardian. He described it as a transient, ephemeral love, a motif carried over from characters like the maidens in Elden Ring.
The game's opening scene features a recurring motif in Miyazaki's work: hands. One hand reaches out to clasp another. The director says this imagery may be subconscious. "I feel like I'm trying to depict some side of human nature or the human existence that is difficult to describe," he said. He also addressed an online rumor about a focus on feet in his games, noting he is unsure where it originated.
The Philosophy of Ruin and Rebirth
Miyazaki identifies ruin and rebirth as a core theme of his work, linking it to broader Japanese cultural expressions like the nuclear paranoia behind Godzilla. He described himself as a pessimist. "If we have two ideas of a brighter or dark future, I would tend to sway towards the darker one," he stated. However, he finds beauty in exploring decay. "If you explore the ruin and the decay in those worlds, it also lets you explore some chance of rebirth, and I think having that tiny pinprick of light or hope can be something beautiful, something fleeting.
This theme connects to his approach to game worlds. FromSoftware's universes are famously obscure, filled with clues that players must piece together. Dishonored director Harvey Smith, who has over 40 days of playtime in Elden Ring, praised this. "Of all the many things Miyazaki and his team do well, creating a sense of mystery is the greatest," Smith explained. "It's a delicious sense of intrigue."
Evolving the FromSoftware Formula
Despite the new multiplayer focus, The Duskbloods remains recognizably a Miyazaki project. The director insists there is no intentional company mantra. "If you start to do that it becomes stale and conservative,"he said. The philosophy is simply to adhere to what the team finds interesting."Soulslike"genre, influencing major titles like God of War and Star Wars: Jedi."I don't intend to," he said. "But I probably have."
