FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki had a ton to say in a recent interview with The Guardian: While most of the focus has been on him claiming to “suck” at his own games, he also gave some clues about what to expect from FromSoftware in the future.
“Budgets, scale, scope, everything has grown to a point where room for failure isn’t tolerated as much as I think it was in the past,” Miyazaki said, pointing to a trend that’s driven everything from the increased development times of games to the layoff crisis still gripping the industry. While FromSoftware often “hedges” its projects by having publishing partners—Bandai Namco, Sony, and Activision to name a few—mitigating potential financial risk is still a major concern for the company.
While Miyazaki acknowledges Elden Ring as a major turning point for FromSoft, with even higher expectations than ever before, he doesn’t seem keen on pushing the envelope on sheer scale and size in future projects: “Where FromSoftware is right now, in terms of scale, I would say Elden Ring is really the limit. We’ve tapped every resource and talent that we have access to.
“Scaling it even bigger, I’d have my concerns. Perhaps having multiple projects is the next stage, where some of the other younger talent can have the opportunity to manage and direct game design for a smaller project.”
While the thought of Elden Ring never being surpassed in the future, at least in one key metric, might carry a note of melancholy, I find Miyazaki’s suggestion of more, smaller games potentially coming from the company to be an exciting one. While I absolutely loved Elden Ring, what I’m hearing in this interview is the potential for more Sekiros, Bloodbornes, or even Shadow of the Erdtrees delivered at a more rapid clip than Elden Ring’s lengthy development.
And of course, there’s always the possibility that FromSoft might just make something even bigger than Elden Ring someday anyway. This is, after all, the same man who said that Elden Ring would take 30 hours to beat, or that Shadow of the Erdtree’s huge map was “comparable” to the base game’s Limgrave area in size. He always seems to be a bit of a trickster when it comes to how big these things are, intentional or not.