Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada has described Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki as the “mad scientist” of game development.
Harada, who has worked alongside Miyazaki for decades, discussed the Dark Souls creator’s unique place in the games industry. Miyazaki, who created the Soulslike genre that is still hyper-popular to this day, may be an older developer, but he has spent considerably less time in the games industry than Harada and other industry legends.
Speaking on social media, Harada claimed they “think it’s remarkable that someone who wasn’t even a game developer during the dawn of the polygon era eventually became one of Japan’s most representative creators”. The Tekken creator explained that Miyazaki is “exceptionally unusual” compared to the rest of Japan’s great developers, but that only makes his work all that more surprising.
Harada worked alongside Miyazaki for decades as a general manager on Dark Souls and Elden Ring. “Today, he receives offers from all over the world,” the Tekken creator said, “but when I think back to the days when he and his team were struggling the most, many of those offers seem like they’re coming from people who only know who they are today. Some of them almost feel like complete reversals in attitude. Well, that’s just my personal perspective.”
The Tekken creator recounted a time when he was working alongside Miyazaki on the VR game Summer Lesson. Both developers were testing the game alongside a group of others. Harada recalled “everyone else was laughing, chatting” while Miyazaki “played it with incredible seriousness”.
“Everyone became curious and finally asked him, ‘Miyazaki, what are you thinking about?’” Harada recalled. “He suddenly smiled and said, ‘Oh… I got completely absorbed in thinking about what I would do if I were making this, and what kind of game I’d create.’ What he talked about after that was, in the best possible sense, completely insane.”
Harada explained that Miyazaki has a “mad scientist side” that’s a “deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity”. Nevertheless, the Tekken creator explained that Miyazaki believes “his own understanding is still shallow” compared to other game developers, despite working on a slew of award-winning, genre-creating, blockbuster releases.
Right now, Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on The Duskbloods, a new multiplayer PvPvE game built on the soulslike framework. The Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive is currently primed to release later this year with a closed network test releasing this Summer. A new version of Elden Ring, dubbed Tarnished Edition, also releases this year.
