FromSoftware president and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki is one of the most revered names in today’s games industry. Even figures like legendary former Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada hold him in high esteem: Recently asked on X about his opinion of Miyazaki, Harada said the Dark Souls creator is a “rather unique, yet extremely serious game developer.”
But while he called Miyazaki’s career “remarkable,” Harada said it’s one that isn’t fully appreciated by those touting FromSoft’s achievements, because more attention is paid to the breakout sales successes of the Souls games than the gradual growth of the developers that made it possible.
What makes Miyazaki’s career “so unique,” Harada said, is that the FromSoft director was a relative latecomer to game development. After working as an Oracle account manager, Miyazaki made an abrupt decision to pursue a game dev career at age 29 after becoming enraptured with Ico on a friend’s suggestion. Given his lack of industry experience, few companies were willing to consider his application—but FromSoft did.
“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 game creators,” Harada said. “In other words, compared to the rest of us from the same generation—including myself—his career path is exceptionally unusual. Most notably, unlike many of us, he was not working at one of the major development studios that held a significant technological advantage during the early polygon era.”