Dark Souls Creator Miyazaki Has “No Idea” What Made Elden Ring Such a Hit

FromSoftware's Elden Ring won the Grand Award at the PlayStation Partner Awards 2022 Japan Asia held earlier today in Tokyo. The Grand Award was given to the two games developed in the Asia region with the highest worldwide sales, and Elden Ring took home the honor along with Genshin Impact. As of the end of June, Elden Ring had sold over 16 million copies worldwide.

Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki participated in a Q&A session with media during the PlayStation Partner Awards, where he was asked what he thinks is the reason for the game’s runaway success.

“Honestly, I haven't analyzed it much,” Miyazaki replied. “It’s true that sales were higher than those of our previous games, but I have no idea what the reason was. So even if I wanted to reproduce that success, I wouldn’t be able to,” he laughed.

He said that he intends to continue making games “the same way as before”, without allowing himself to be affected by the success of Elden Ring.

“I try not to think about it too much, because I think it would be a bad idea to analyze it deeply and to consciously try to replicate it in another game,” Miyazaki said.

Miyazaki is happy with Elden Ring sales

However, Miyazaki said that he is happy with the sales and the acclaim that Elden Ring has garnered, and that it will lead to a more fulfilling development process for him and his team at FromSoftware, allowing them to create future games that are even truer to their own style.

Miyazaki was also asked what he thought of the various comments made by players in the wake of the game’s success, to which he revealed that he is careful to avoid being overly exposed to player feedback.

“I can’t possibly listen to every single comment from our players, and if I only take on selected pieces of feedback, it might affect my future decisions as a developer, which I find rather unsettling. I know that I personally could not be fully objective, so I try to avoid being directly exposed to too many opinions,” Miyazaki said.

I try not to think about it too much, because I think it would be a bad idea to analyze it deeply and to consciously try to replicate it in another game,

On the other hand, Miyazaki said that Elden Ring attracted many players who had never played a FromSoftware game before, which reminded him of when players discovered Demon’s Souls for the first time. “It’s a nostalgic feeling,” he said.

Elden Ring and Genshin Impact among major winners

Genshin Impact also won the Grand Award, for the second year in a row.

In addition to the Grand Award, Elden Ring also won the User’s Choice Award, along with Earth Defense Force 6, Stray, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. Other award winners included Final Fantasy XIV, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles, Resident Evil: Village, Gran Turismo 7 and Apex Legends.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor of IGN Japan; follow him here on Twitter. Esra Krabbe is an editor at IGN Japan, and is on Twitter here.