Dark Souls: Design Works

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Miyazaki: I like the dragon weapons, especially the Drake Sword and the Moonlight Greatsword, I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Satake: Yes, I really think Hatsuyama overcame a difficult challenge, taking advice from various people, but at the same time producing something that is all her own. Miyazaki: It may sound strange, but it's quite common for the tutorial to be the last thing to be integrated. It's much easier to design it once you know what needs to be communicated, and found the best to explain it to the player. I remember saying that the Undead Asylum should take Dark Souls' dark fantasy aesthetic and just distill that to it's purest essence. We began with the image of a gloomy basement cell and the stone architecture and also incorporated that cold, sad atmosphere I mentioned previously. Once we decided on this direction, the area came together fairly easily. In many ways, it fell directly in the center of designs we had been working on up until that point…

Miyazaki: You may not believe me, but I always tried to maintain a certain level of refinement and elegance in all the designs. I often told the artists muddy or messy is definitely *not good*. I think this carries through the entire game, of course if you asked me to describe what this "elegance" is… well I think you just have to look at the designs and judge for yourself, but it really is one of the most important factors in everything I oversee. Hatsuyama: When designing our cover, I have to admit, I was at a complete loss as to what to do, I was told I had to "face the darkness inside myself", which didn't really help at all. Anor Londo for instance is one of the most complicated areas in the game in terms of architecture, and as the mid-way point of the game it's also a very important area, so we spent a great deal of time working on it. After ringing the bells and overcoming the traps of Sen's Fortress I really wanted to player to feel "Yes! I've made it!"Miyazaki: I think it turned into a good silhouette in the end, he looks like someone who doesn't like other people… I can empathise with that, haha. Miyazaki: Oh yeah! especially at the beginning. About the world, life and death, and with regards to the game world, the meaning of fire and role of the four kings. By talking like this with the artists I found it not only helped them develop their ideas, but it really helped me shape my idea of the world I wanted to create. I also tried hard not to be predictable or conservative. Of course we decided on a fantasy setting so we couldn't stray too far from that, but we had to be careful not to just take the easy route or the world would become boring. I really tried hard to maintain this. - Otsuka: Is there anything else in particular you tried to avoid? Hatsuyama: I thought he'd turn into a mushroom, but I was told that it wasn't an issue, so I just went ahead and did it. Miyazaki: You can almost imagine it saying things like "you're too far away", "get over here, I want to eat you". Of course, these words never came up in the design process as I never imagined the creature would develop in this way, but I think it's a really incredible design. As I said before I love working together with the artists, I really think it benefits both of us. In fact I'd go so far as to say that it's my favourite part of the job.

Otsuka: Next, I'd like to talk about each of the areas in the game in a little more detail. I suppose we should start at the beginning in the Undead Asylum. Otsuka: Well now that we've talked about the bosses, I'd like to talk a bit about the normal enemies. Miyazaki: Thank you. She was the heroine of the story at one point, so I'm glad you think so. Moving on to the Endead Burg: we never really spent much time working on the look of the area. It was the first map we created and the large bridge, the church and the other structures were already planned out by the 3D artist who was in charge of the area. As the lead artist on the project, he had already decided exactly how he wanted these things to look down to the smallest detail, even the levers and statues. Hatsuyama: Artistically speaking, I made his hat far too big, you can't actually see his face anymore. Hatsuyama: The fact, they used to be Silver Knights and were transformed when Gwyn linked the flame. I was really happy that players actually noticed. I saw someone saying "this must have happened when they were burned" and I realised they'd got it!That pose actually carries some significance for me: in Demon's Souls that was a holy sign. When I presented the game to the rest of the company, I showed them the pose and one of the higher-ups told me that it just wasn't cool enough. Of course, I told him I'd get rid of it, but I secretly kept it for later… so naturally, with this game, I was determined to use it. Waragai: The image of a trap road was fairly straightforward. The pendulums, rolling boulders and other major traps were all there from the start. In fact, we almost tried hard to make them obvious and create things that screamed "trap!". Miyazaki: There's something unnatural about Smough's armour, it doesn't look like something that would have been created by a normal, sane person, I think that's what I like about it. There was a rumor that we were hunting players who bought the game early. I wasn't us, but whoever it was, they were wearing Smough's armour and I remember thinking how fitting it was.

Miyazaki: We pursued two main avenues when designing Dark Souls: in the initial concept stages I gave each of the artists a few simple "image words" to use as a starting point and then they were free to develop these in whatever way they wished. We then took the images we liked, adjusted them where necessary and used them to begin shaping the world. For example the Gaping Dragon, Egg Carrier and Gravelord Nito all emerged during this stage and made it almost unchanged into the final game.

In cases where I had a clearer idea of what I wanted, the design process was slightly different. For example, this is going to be used in this place to perform this function or, the area is designed in this way so it must adhere to these conditions, for example the mimic and the gargoyles. Regardless of which design process was used, rather than to appoint a person to take charge of each concept, I took the designs and talked them over with each of the artists and developed them in that way. Miyazaki: Although Siegmeyer isn't actually fat, it's just his armour. It's the strange little details like this that I really like about it. If there's one thing I regret about the Catarina armour is that I wasn't able to show the helmet opening. It's designed to do that and I have a mental image of Siegmeyer popping it open and hungrily guzzling down some food, I just wasn't able to fit in anywhere in the game. I have to apologise to Mr. Waragai for that. Sieglinde

Miyazaki: In his underwear… If we had done that I'm not sure it would have been taken in the way I wanted. But I also really like Logan as a character, I spent a good amount of time on the design. He's a wise man or a sage but I really wanted to make him unique so I had quite a few designs made. Once we arrived on the idea of his big hat, the design came together, but that wasn't there from the start and only emerged through continual revisions.

New printings of the Dark Souls: Design Works trilogy are now available from Udon

With the recent release of the Dark Souls DLC on consoles I thought it might be interesting to translate the interview from Dark Souls Design Works. It's pretty lengthy so I'll be splitting it up into four or five parts and hopefully releasing one every couple of weeks. Nakamura: Yes, the shape of the weapon was based entirely around the idea of stabbing the dragon, and then using all your body's weight to force the spear deeper. Miyazaki: You mean the Crystal Ring Shield? I must admit, I wasn't entirely happy with how that turned out. Miyazaki: We tried a slightly different approach with the New Londo ruins, closely basing it on existing architecture, in this case Mont Saint-Michelin Normandy, France. Of course, it's not exactly the same, but if you compare the two, the similarities are obvious.