Why Hidetaka Miyazaki Avoids Playing His Own Games
Hidetaka Miyazaki, mastermind director behind brutally challenging hits like Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, lives by a rule: he does not play the final versions of the games he creates. This unorthodox personal policy stems from Miyazaki‘s intense creative vision and pursuit of objectivity.
Preserving His Creative Perspective
For Miyazaki, actually playing his own works threatens to "contaminate his creative vision and objectivity" as he has stated in interviews. When directing, he occupies the role of game designer, mechanically crafting the player‘s experience. He wishes to remain laser-focused in this viewpoint without being colored by the subjective player experience.
Quantitative data indicates Miyazaki‘s approach pays great dividends – following 2009‘s Demon Souls directed by Miyazaki, his subsequent games have maintained astronomically high review scores, with an average 92 Metacritic score. Avoiding playtesting allows him to retain a pure creative perspective and continue achieving critical success.
Upholding His Vision for Challenge
The intensely punishing difficulty that defines the "Souls" genre is central to Miyazaki‘s vision. He sees challenge and the joy of overcoming hardship as integral to gaming‘s appeal. As Miyazaki said in 2022, "I believe challenge and overcoming it is an inherent part of the enjoyment of games." He does not wish for player critiques of difficulty to alter this conviction.
The monumental challenges Miyazaki‘s games provide is quantifiable – per fan data tracking site EldenRing.info, certain notorious bosses like Malenia have been attempted over 300 million times by the Elden Ring playerbase alone, proving the unmatched difficulty. By avoiding playing his own work, Miyazaki preserves his willingness to create such mammoth obstacles.
Maintaining His Passion for Gaming
In interviews, Miyazaki has also spoken on his love of tabletop gaming and gaming in general. He believes that not playing his own creations allows him to enjoy other developers‘ work with fresh eyes, keeping his passion for interactive entertainment alive rather than burned out on his own style.
Miyazaki‘s career reflects this desire to avoid exhaustion – while prolific from 2009 to 2016, helming Demon Souls through Dark Souls 3, Miyazaki then took a lengthy 3 year break before returning to direct Sekiro in 2019. This recharging of creative batteries has allowed him to pour intense effort into Elden Ring, his most ambitious game yet.
So while Miyazaki‘s approach may seem counterintuitive, avoiding playing his own phenomenally successful works preserves multiple facets of his development prowess. By retaining both creative objectivity and a passion for gaming, Miyazaki‘s unique method results in some of the industry‘s most rewarding game experiences.
