Hidetaka Miyazaki

Miyazaki in 2022

Hidetaka Miyazaki (宮崎 英高, Miyazaki Hidetaka, born c. 1975) is the leader of the video game company FromSoftware and head designer of games such as Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. Miyazaki grew up in a poor family. Miyazaki loved reading, but since his family could not even afford to buy books for him, he would often borrow them from the library. Although he loved reading, there were parts of the books he read that he could not understand, so he just made up parts of the story in his own mind. This would be the way stories in the Souls series of video games, which he would later make, are told. In those games, some details are told to the player, but the player is expected to imagine the parts of the story not told.

After university, Miyazaki would be an account manager for the US company Oracle Corporation until he was 29. This was because after playing the game Ico, he decided to quit his job to become a game designer. Due to his age and lack of experience, very few companies would hire him. However, he got a job from FromSoftware and became the leading designer for some of the Armored Core games. While FromSoftware had ideas for Demon's Souls, the idea was put away because no one thought the game would be popular. However, Miyazaki liked the idea and lead the development team. Demon's Souls would become so popular that FromSoftware would become a well-known video game company, and Miyazaki would later take over the company.