Jun 12th 1-2-3: Project Dark - FromSoftware's Greatest Mistake
I find that there’s much to learn from the development process of Demon Souls (PS3) and it’s development. What it was supposed to be, what it became, and the process the of the man who turned this project around are prime examples of the ‘go get it’ attitude I believe we as creatives ought to have. So without further introductions, what’s the story behind this story?
1: FromSoftware's Greatest Mistake ( 4 minute read )
Hidetaka Miyazaki is the director and leading man within the video game development studio, “From Software”. He was initially hired into the company back in 2004 as a game planner, and over the years he specifically worked in the Armored Core IP that had brought FromSoftware so much acclaim.
Around 2006 FromSoftware had been slowly building their own form of a fantasy RPG that was meant to compete with the recently released Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
The game was being built under the codename of ‘Project Dark’, a codename that later be reused during the development of Dark Souls, and was focused to be a more traditional ‘western-style’ fantasy RPG for the PS3.
It’s development was well underway, though the project was seemingly missing a lot. It had no direction, it had no technical stability, and dare I say, it had no soul.
The project was becoming a large waste of money for both FromSoftware and Sony Japan Studio. So much so, that most of the people working on the game grew frustrated working on it and were ready to give up and cancel the title, but a then aspiring Miyazaki had the gumption and inspiration to try turn the project around.
He volunteered to direct the struggling project into something worth while, and the powers that be at FromSoftware agreed. The reason why he volunteered was because of something he saw in the project. No, it wasn’t anything that was in the project itself, but it was the opportunity the project itself provided. You see, Miyazaki was aware of the fact that this project was already seen as a lost cause, so he figured that if he could just turn this into something that contained even the slightest amount of interest, he could then claim it as his own.
From Project Dark to Demon Souls
Once Miyazaki was in the directors seat, he had to take roll on what had been made. He needed to fully understand what was being made, where it went wrong, and what could be repurposed. In this process he began to realize that one of the fundamental problems of this game was that it was being made to replicate something that was made with inspiration. However, the project itself had no inspiration. It was just a husk of geometry, textures, and code that were lifelessly thrown together to be for anyone and everyone.
So he decided to drastically strip the project back, and began to rebuild it into something he would like to play. Rather than being an open world fantasy RPG, much like Oblivion, he would make it more linear. Rather than having gameplay that is rather stat based and forgiving, he would make this game more skill based and very unforgiving. Rather than having a story that holds your hand along the way, he would make the story one that required the player to put effort into it to begin to understand it.
In almost every aspect of what this project was supposed to be, Miyazaki flipped the script and went in an opposite direction. Though this wasn’t just for the sake of being a contrarian towards this project, it was to allow the project to be more manageable to develop in the given time while also giving the project more direction in terms of the gameplay loops within it.
Overall, Miyazaki chose to double down on atmosphere, an oppressive mood, and high difficulty. He wanted the player to learn from death rather than see death as a fail state.
Though his approach was scrutinized as being needlessly risky, development did begin to move along more smoothly, and after a couple years of development under Miyazaki’s direction…it was finally complete.
From Demon Souls To Release
The game was first released in Japan on February 5, 2009, and was met was confusion and frustration from most people who played it. People didn’t understand why it was so hard. They didn’t understand why the story was so vague, and hidden in things like the environment or item descriptions.
Hell, even then President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida was quoted saying that the game was “Crap” and “an unbelievably bad game”. You see, he had played an early version of the game and spent a little bit of time with it before dropping the controller and coming to his conclusion, and by all means most players had this very experience.
But the thing about Demon Souls or more specifically, Miyazaki’s works, is that they require you to spend time with them to understand what they are saying.
Overtime the game had the majority of its players drop off, while only a small percentage stuck around and began to understand this outlier of a title.
The game had earned a small following, and a small following was all it took for word to spread all over the internet, and when FromSoftware asked Sony to publish the game outside of Japan, they were refused.
But then Atlus USA and Bandai Namco stepped in and agreed to publish Demon Souls for an international release.
The word that had spread over the internet, anticipation had grown, and once this game was released in the US it became a huge hit. People couldn’t stop talking about how rewarding its challenges were to overcome, how in depth and detail oriented its storytelling was, how unique it was during a time where games were beginning to become so similar.
It was praised for its innovation in gameplay, storytelling, level design, and teaching players.
It was bold, and it surely took time for people to start understanding it, but it paid off bigtime.
From Release to Legacy
Demon Souls, changed the future of FromSoftware, and it gave one of the most creative minds in games a chance to show what he could create, and it changed the entire video game industry.
The iterations on this first blueprint have become the tapestry in the halls of FromSoftwares legacy, and the influence of this game is seen everywhere with the birth of the ‘Soulslike’ or ‘Soulsborne’ genre of RPG’s.
From a project that began as an imitation of another Fantasy RPG, came the birth of a whole new type of Fantasy RPG.
It all started with a man, his inspiration and influences, and most importantly, his perseverance and his innate creativity to make the most of what was right in front of him.
Now go grab some of your ‘failed’ or ‘failing’ works, and use your creativity to turn it into something uniquely YOU.
2: Creative Prompts From Us (ex. Write a short story, a poem, a song, or draw a quick illustration of these! Let your imagination run free.)
I. Get one of your works that you see as a failure. However makes most sense to you, get and create an overview of all the separate parts of that work.
II. Use and repurpose those parts to create something new, something that speaks to you.
3: Inspirational Quotes From Hidetaki Miyazaki
I. “That power of imagination. is important to me. Offering room for user interpretation creates a sense of communication with the audience—-and, of course, communication between users in the community.”
II. “I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted… Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care – it was already a failure.”
III. “I try to create … an experience that keeps you very aware of your surroundings … But to get to this point, you need failures, failures from which you learn.”
Thank you so much for reading!