“It feels justified”: Hidetaka Miyazaki Says His Infamously Brutal Games Are Fair, Not Frustrating

“It feels justified”: Hidetaka Miyazaki Says His Infamously Brutal Games Are Fair, Not Frustrating

From Demon’s Souls to Elden Ring, FromSoftware has built a reputation for games that test players’ patience as much as their skill. And while we have all spent hours throwing ourselves at a boss in frustration, Hidetaka Miyazaki notes that a lot of people have misunderstood the point of the unforgiving difficulty. Boss fights in FromSoft’s games are an unforgiving affair where mistakes are punished instantly, and death is an expected part of the…

From Demon’s Souls to Elden Ring: Inside FromSoftware’s approach to brutal video game difficulty

Explore FromSoftware's approach to brutal video game difficulty, and how fair design, learning curves, and player mastery define its iconic games.

ELDEN RING De-Makes For Old Consoles Seem Even Harder

Even three years after its release, FromSoftware’s Elden Ring remains the highwater mark for action RPGs with expansive open worlds. As with all games from director Hidetaka Miyazaki, this game had some of the deepest, darkest characters, intricate environmental storytelling, and hard as nails bosses. Like, seriously, Malenia was a nightmare and then with the DLC they upped the ante with Promised Consort Radahn. Ca-ripes. But all of this is on P…

FromSoftware head Hidetaka Miyazaki says games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls aren't about "simply cranking up the difficulty; it’s doing so fairly"

"We believe in difficult games, but not games that are unjustly or unfairly so."