Hidetaka Miyazaki takes great inspiration from director of King's Field on PS1

FromSoftware macabre maven Hidetaka Miyazaki reveals that he still takes great influence from Natoshi Zin, the director of the original King's Field games released in the 1990s.

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FromSoftware's penchant for grueling dark fantasy is well known today, but that wasn't always the case. Back in the mid-1990s, the studio released King's Field, a first-person hack-and-slash action adventure game with strong RPG influences. The game is a nostalgic favorite among FromSoft faithful, but didn't manage to shake-up the market the way Dark Souls did--sales-wise, King's Field wasn't a huge hit, at least by today's standards. That being said, the original King's Field sold twice as much as FromSoft predicted, and laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the studio's immortal legacy.

It's interesting then to see that Hidetaka Miyazaki, the current president of FromSoftware and director of its most famous and well-celebrated games, takes great inspiration from those olden days of yore. In particular, Miyazaki says that he looks up to Natoshi Zin, the director behind the OG King's Field launched in 1994 on the PlayStation 1.

Photo credit: Majuular (YouTube)

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Miyazaki was specifically asked if there was someone in his personal life that influenced and inspired him to make the long-lasting games that he and FromSoftware made over the years. His response was pretty illuminating:

"One that comes to mind is the previous president of FromSoftware, Zin-san. He directed the first game FromSoftware produced, which was King's Field, close to the launch of the PlayStation 1.

"I really like his world building and way of thinking, his approach to things. So even now, when we catch up or have a chat, there's always some learning there for me. Of course, I've never told him to his face that I respect him and I feel this way, so if this interview gets somehow translated back in the Japanese and he sees it, I don't know what he's going to say ..."

If you've played the original King's Field games, you know what Miyazaki is referring to. These games are grim, dark, and full of exploration during a time when 3D gaming was still in its infancy. That old-school pixellated polygonal style is still popular enough to facilitate its own genre of games--"demakes" with that interesting 1990s PS1 style.