Miyazaki Says FromSoftware Avoids a Fixed Formula to Keep Its Games Exciting

FromSoftware's games may be instantly recognizable, but Hidetaka Miyazaki says recognizability is not the same thing as following a permanent development formula. The director behind Dark Souls and Elden Ring has explained that the studio does not begin each project with an internal rulebook dictating exactly what a FromSoftware game must be.

That distinction matters as the developer looks toward The Duskbloods, a project that appears set to push its combat and dark fantasy sensibilities into a more multiplayer-oriented structure. Rather than simply building another game from familiar Souls-style components, Miyazaki's comments suggest that FromSoftware sees creative curiosity--not strict repetition--as the connective thread between its releases.

In an interview with The Guardian, Miyazaki said there is no deliberate studio mantra along the lines of, "this is the way we make our games." In his view, turning past successes into a set of inflexible commandments would eventually make the work conservative and stale. He argued that adhering too closely to established rules and philosophies makes it harder to create something genuinely interesting or as fun as it could be.

It is a useful explanation for a studio that has become synonymous with a particular kind of challenge, worldbuilding, and combat, while repeatedly proving that those traits can be rearranged into dramatically different games.

For useful background on this topic, read Why Xenogears' Solaris Still Stands as One of Gaming's Most Unsettling Cities.

A recognizable identity without a locked-in template

It would be difficult to deny that FromSoftware has a house style. Its major modern releases often feature imposing bosses, cryptic storytelling, threatening environments, memorable architecture, and a willingness to let players struggle before they understand the larger shape of a world. The influence of Dark Souls in particular has been enormous, helping establish a vocabulary that players still use to describe tough action RPGs, environmental storytelling, checkpoint systems, and high-stakes combat.

But a shared sensibility is not the same as making the same game over and over. Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring all carry recognizable DNA from earlier FromSoftware work, yet their core rhythms are very different.

• Bloodborne shifts the mood toward gothic horror and rewards a more aggressive combat approach.
• Sekiro focuses on tightly timed deflections, posture management, mobility, and a more defined protagonist.
• Elden Ring expands the formula into an enormous open world, giving players far more freedom over exploration, character builds, and the order in which they confront danger.

Playing Sekiro directly after Elden Ring makes the contrast especially clear. One is built around an intensely focused blade-on-blade duel system, while the other gives players a giant landscape and a vast toolbox of weapons, spells, summons, and approaches. Both can be immediately identified as FromSoftware works, but they do not ask for the same skills or produce the same kind of adventure.

Miyazaki described the studio's more useful philosophy as pursuing what its developers find interesting first. He believes that approach has created a strong throughline between the games, and it is what the team concentrates on when conceiving a new title. In other words, the consistency comes from the interests and creative instincts behind the projects rather than from an obligation to preserve every mechanical convention.

Why The Duskbloods stands out

The Duskbloods is the clearest current example of FromSoftware exploring beyond expectations attached to the Souls lineage. The game is expected to bring some of the energy and combat appeal associated with titles such as Bloodborne into a multiplayer loop that has been compared to the structure of extraction shooters.

That is a significant shift in emphasis. FromSoftware has extensive experience with online features, from player messages and summoned allies to invasions and cooperative boss encounters. Those systems have long been central to the mystery and tension of its games. Still, they usually operate alongside a largely solitary RPG or action-game journey. A design built more fundamentally around multiplayer interactions could change how players think about risk, progression, encounters, and even storytelling.

The prospect may sound unusual to players who want every project from the studio to resemble another Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Miyazaki's remarks make clear that this is precisely the sort of expectation FromSoftware does not want to treat as a mandate. A studio can appreciate the qualities that made its older games beloved without assuming those qualities must always appear in the same arrangement.

That attitude is especially important in an industry where successful ideas are frequently repeated until their original spark fades. Popular genres routinely invite imitation, and Dark Souls has inspired a huge number of games over the past 15 years. Some borrow its challenge, others its stamina-based combat, its oppressive worlds, its boss structure, or its approach to death and recovery. The genre label that grew around those games has become so broad that it can sometimes obscure how varied FromSoftware's own output has been.

Experimentation is not a rejection of the past

Resisting a fixed formula does not mean discarding everything that worked before. It means selecting the elements that fit a new idea instead of starting from the assumption that every returning feature is mandatory. That is how a developer can retain an identity without being trapped by it.

FromSoftware's history offers plenty of evidence for that balance. Its games repeatedly return to themes of isolation, danger, discovery, and difficult triumph. They often ask players to pay close attention, learn from failure, and form their own understanding of unfamiliar worlds. Yet the means by which they deliver those experiences have changed substantially from one release to the next.

That flexibility has also helped keep discussion around the studio's work lively. Players can debate whether they prefer the methodical encounters of Dark Souls, the speed and pressure of Bloodborne, the precision of Sekiro, or the breadth of Elden Ring because each game is designed around a distinct set of priorities. If every project followed an identical template, those comparisons would be less interesting--and the studio's future would likely be less surprising.

Miyazaki's comments point to a simple but demanding creative standard: developers must remain willing to chase ideas that genuinely excite them. That can involve risk. It can also mean a new game does not immediately fit the category fans expect. But the alternative is a process driven by caution, where familiarity becomes more valuable than invention.

A studio still willing to surprise players

The attention surrounding The Duskbloods shows how closely players watch FromSoftware whenever it moves in a new direction. The game has already produced online fascination with its character Zork, with Miyazaki saying he has developed a powerful, almost maternal affection for the character. That kind of specific, eccentric detail fits a studio known for creating figures and worlds that inspire intense player speculation.

More broadly, it suggests that FromSoftware has not lost its appetite for strangeness even as it has become one of the industry's most closely watched developers. Major success can create pressure to make safer sequels and preserve a proven structure. Miyazaki's stance indicates that the studio considers creative interest a better guide than safety.

For fans, that does not guarantee that every experiment will align with every preference. A multiplayer-focused game will naturally appeal to some players more than others, just as the combat differences between Sekiro and Elden Ring have divided tastes. Yet the willingness to make those distinctions is likely part of why FromSoftware's catalog has remained influential rather than merely repetitive.

Its games share a lineage, but Miyazaki does not see that lineage as a set of chains. As The Duskbloods approaches, the studio's message is that its future will be shaped by the ideas it wants to explore--not by an obligation to endlessly replay the rules that defined its past.