One of the more surprising PlayStation-related announcements from last week was Déraciné, a new adventure game for PlayStation VR by FromSoftware, who are best known for their work on the Dark Souls series. Today, an interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSoftware was posted on PlayStation Blog, where he reveals more about the game.
During the interview, Miyazaki-san explained how the studio wanted to expand into VR, but also wanted to tackle an adventure game that called by to FromSoftware’s roots:
“Firstly, as a developer, we knew that we needed to be up to speed with what was going on in the VR space. We were trying to find an opportunity to work on a project that would bring is into the fold…
As we were starting to wrap up Bloodborne and Dark Souls III we were obviously looking at what might come next, but at the same time we were looking at what we’d done in the past. We actually released a lot of adventure games prior to our more recent reputation for action titles. For example, we released one called Echo Night.
We didn’t want to just bring that back, but at the same time we knew that we had heritage in adventure games. So that gave us the opportunity to start having an internal conversation about what we could do within that genre, while at the same time looking at VR – and the two ideas meshed well.”
When asked what Déraciné, a title with a more peaceful and relaxing tone, had in common with titles like Bloodborne and Dark Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki cited the game’s storytelling, atmosphere, and sense of mystery:
“The way that we tell the story – the fragmented storytelling approach we take. The other thing is the quiet calmness that might evoke a certain mood that is unique to FromSoftware games. There is also a sense of beauty that I think is common throughout our games, even though the way that beauty is expressed can be very different. here is maybe a sense of mystery that is quite unique but maybe executed in a similar way to other of our games.”
In addition, this interview also finally revealed why FromSoftware, and Miyazaki-san himself, love putting more fragmented or subtle storytelling in their games, including Déraciné:
“It’s an absolute true fact that this is the methodology that I take in telling stories in our games. It’s an approach that I really like. I believe it’s rooted in my own life experience. When I was a kid I was reading books that were probably intended for an older age group. They were books that were very hard for me to understand.
If I read the book straight-up I probably didn’t understand some of the words or concepts and the meanings. But the work that I had to do – like leaving some of the story up to my imagination, or going back to read things again later when I had greater understanding – that’s a process that has had a big influence on what I do today.
I feel like you can have ‘easy’ books that you can read all the time but once in a while I feel like you should feed yourself something a bit more challenging,that gives you a sense of enjoyment and fun when you are finally able to understand it. That’s the approach I like to take – to ensure there is that sense of happiness in understanding what is being told.”
If you want to see more about the game, you could check out some recently released screenshots and its initial trailer. Déraciné is currently poised to hit PlayStation VR later this year.