Dark Souls II Interview

There’s a new interview with From Software’s Hidetaka Miyazaki and Tomohiro Shibuya over at 4Gamer, and while the article is in Japanese, we’re able to decipher most of its contents through either Google Translate or this summary on Siliconera. Some interesting bits:

As a supervisor, Miyazaki will monitor development and will make sure it stays true to its core as a Dark Souls game. However, he’s going to hold himself back when it comes to the world, story and artwork, as he believes that most of that should be up to Shibuya, as the new director.

Tomohiro Shibuya is known for his work in the mecha all-star game, Another Century’s Episode. Aside from A.C.E., Shibuya has worked in developing a new high-end graphics engine, which he plans on implementing in Dark Souls II. He recently stated that he’d like to evolve the overall experience of Dark Souls II, but in order to do that, he believes that it needs to start with the overall graphics.

Shibuya shares: (Rather than focusing on shading and lighting technologies, I believe that having a more realistic atmosphere while showing better details of the monsters and their expressions would definitely have a bigger impact.)

In regards to how Dark Souls II will connect to its predecessor, it will take place in the same world, although it won’t be a direct sequel. The story will take place in a different area with different people. Shibuya decided to stick to the original Dark Souls map style, instead of opting for an open-open world. As far as recurring characters go, not much can be said for the time being.