Dark Souls: Design Works

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Smough was one of the few living beings left who seemed present in Anor Londo, stationed there alongside Dragon Slayer Ornstein to guard Gwynevere, Princess of Sunlight. Miyazaki: I remember all the trouble we went through naming the character. Waragai thought my original name for the character was too sad. Dark Souls was his first job as an art designer and Nito was his first design so I felt I should respect his wishes. I changed the name slightly and I actually think the new name fits the character much better. Nito was originally created as the boss for the prototype map, and because of that, we tried out a huge range of different effects. There was constantly discussion about what colour he should be and how he should look. Miyazaki: The demon in the Uundead Asylum, the Taurus and Capra demons - in fact, the majority of the demon enemies were designed by Mr. Nakamura. I really love all of his designs, they're simple but not predictable. Exactly the kind of creatures that I imagined populating the Dark Souls world. They're just fantastic.

Miyazaki: Smough came form the initial concept stages, while Ornstein was introduced much later. I remember the Channeller's design was put forward around the same time as Smough's and we all took to referring to them as the four knights; Knights C and D, if I remember correctly. I hoped that by doing this, it would ensure that Knights A and B were implemented. Otsuka: That's great. So, does it have a special meaning for you since it was one of your first designs?To digress for a minute, the above observations are perhaps a reason why the game’s more open and natural areas are not as interesting on a moment-to-moment basis. When much of the game’s situations depend on the explicit structural identity of architecture, there’s a reduction of specific design and discretely divisible landscaping when the space has exploded. This doesn’t mean that the relevant areas are bad to the core, really. It just means that places like the Darkroot Basin or Demon Ruins offer a different experience than the Undead Parish or Sen’s Fortress. They offer the mystery of space that has suddenly and atypically expanded, such that you can look at its vaguer sprawl and wonder about its extent. Just how far, and just how deep does this body of land go? Of course, this also means that once you do know their extent, it’s harder for those same places to register as engaging on later playthroughs. What is this clarity, exactly? In the midst of other action-adventure games from the last and current generation of consoles, Dark Souls’ spaces have an unusually concentrated organization. This has a functional justification, as the challenge is very much built on your opponents’ location. In his insightful article, Dark Souls : It’s Like an NES Game!, James Margaris writes, A casual review of the environmental concept art for games such as God of War: Ascension, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Gears of War: Judgment, or titles in the Uncharted series, reveals a different pattern. Here, there is a stronger emphasis on macro scenery – the totality of a given environment rendered in as much detail as possible. Asymmetry is more prevalent than symmetry, and it’s harder to divide the environments into distinct chunks. In general, these games and others seem to prioritize compositional principles that (although present in many cultures’ creative expressions beforehand) were popularized in Europe and America during the twentieth century (there is also perhaps something else to be said, outside of this article’s reach, about artist Nicolas Bouvier’s influence within the videogame medium). Satake: Yes. From what I remember, it was originally designed as a water temple, but as work on the game progressed and the image of kindling and fire became more prominent, the water gradually dried up. Miyazaki: I wonder… Personally - this is also the case with the Ceaseless Discharge - I'm not entirely happy with the way she turned out, I think we could have improved both their behaviour and the way they are introduced to the player.

Waragai: Yes, it was never designed as a basilisk. It was just one of the many designs created during those initial stages. In the end, we had an out-of-house artist brush up the design. Miyazaki: This was my first time working together with Ms. Hatsuyama, so I wanted to begin designing something that was relatively orthodox, and use the opportunity to get us thinking on the same wavelength, unite our ideas of fantasy if you will. I think that was my plan… but it took quite a while to get right. Waragai: Yes. While I was in charge of New Londo, the fact that it was based so heavily on a real world location meant that there wasn't actually a great deal of work to be done. All but the finest details were already in place.After defeating Aldrich, Devourer of Gods in Dark Souls III, players gain access to Smough's Set. This correlation could imply that Aldrich might have consumed Smough, who was the protector of this very cathedral in Dark Souls, [5] as well. Hatsuyama: The fact, they used to be Silver Knights and were transformed when Gwyn linked the flame. I was really happy that players actually noticed. I saw someone saying "this must have happened when they were burned" and I realised they'd got it! Miyazaki: Yes, but each of the areas had its own feel or tone as far as art direction was concerned. For an area like Blight Town for example, we found that once we decided on the general direction and gathered appropriate reference materials, there wasn't really a need to spend too much time developing the look of the area, it just came together. However in areas which were composed of more traditional architecture, we had to spend a lot of time working on the finer details. There weren't a huge amount of artists on the team so it was a case of moving people to where they would be of most use.