FROM president and game designer, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has shared his favorite and least favorite zones from the Souls games (excluding Bloodborne). While nothing new was shown for Dark Souls 3 today, this article gives us some pretty good insight at what we can expect for the world design in Dark Souls 3. Miyazaki would also like to confirm that we definitely will see a poison filled zone in Dark Souls 3 similar to the Valley of Defilement (Demon’s Souls), Blighttown (Dark Souls), and the Gutter/Black Gulch (Dark Souls 2).

Miyazaki has stated numerous times throughout the development of Bloodborne that his favorite zone in any game he has created would be the Tower of Latria from Demon’s Souls (article-header photo is a typical enemy in the Tower of Latria you find several times). He confirms through GameInformer that it is still his favorite Souls zone. For those of you that don’t know, The Tower of Latria is one of the most haunting areas in the Souls series, period. Filled with Mind-Flayers, vast amounts of terrors, jail cells, haunting choir…you certainly need to play through the game to discover it for yourself. It’s definitely one of the best designed stages in any video game.

Miyazaki states down below about his personal development through this stage…:

Usually I convey the concepts and ideas to my staff, and have them create the actual models and structure,” says Miyazaki “But Latria was one that I wanted to create myself and was one that I actually created the rough 3D models for.

Throughout the interview, Miyazaki also states that the third zone developed for Boletaria Palace was the actual first developed map when Demon’s Souls was in development. He mentions this…:

This was the very first venue we created when developing Demon’s souls. This was the venue used for the prototype, and the multi-play elements worked out fairly well, and so is one that I remember very well.

Moving away from Demon’s Souls, he also mentions that he adores The Painted World of Ariamis from Dark Souls. This world happens to be snow fallen, filled with pinwheels, bleeding type enemies, and more. The world itself is trapped inside a paining in Anor Londo, creating a unique experience for players that have not discovered it yet. Down below is a quote regarding his thoughts on The Painted World of Ariamis.

This is one where the concept and design all fit well for me…The world to trap players in, the solemnness of the snow and atmosphere of the world all work well.

Miyazaki also brought up one of the other zones from Dark Souls, the Undead Parish. Apparently, a lot more structural designs were going to be added, but due to technical limitations they were scaled back.

This is one that has a lot of my ideal multi-dimensional venue visions. This one I remember very well because there were a lot of structural elements that I wanted to implement but due to technical reasons, had to modify instead of creating everything as one giant seamless world like I originally intended.

Anor Londo is a world in the game that had such a huge impact on players, and he wish he could have kept that same impact throughout the rest of the game.

I like when you first enter Anor Londo, but unfortunately the impact and excitement felt when you first enter Anor Londo didn’t last through the whole gameplay experience, so this is more of a regret in the design.

GameInformer staff had the opportunity to ask Miyazaki one more question. The question is something you may have guessed. The staff at GameInformer asked Miyazaki about what his least favorite world is. Miyazaki’s comment regarding that is actually quite lighthearted and nice. Kudos to him!

Don’t want to elaborate on this very much. There was a different person assigned to this area, and although I was involved, I don’t want to pose very many negative comments for his sake. It can be a learning experience for all of us.

The world that he is talking about is the lava filled, dragon/dinosaur (?) ridden, weaker zone of the game, the Lost Izalith. While I certainly don’t think the level design in that zone is bad, I don’t think it is the greatest.

Source: GameInformer (interview with Miyazaki)

Do you have a favorite area in the Souls games or Bloodborne?

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-Rogue.