Miyazaki: I'm sorry. Of course, If I don't get what I want, I start giving more specific descriptions and I might even start drawing things on the whiteboard, but even then I'd never go so far as to say "it has to be this colour or this shape", I don't want the designers to become my tools. It doesn't always go as I want, but I think that's probably due to me not getting the best out of the artists, and this is something I want to get better at in the future. Miyazaki: That's right. We really had trouble with that. I've already talked about quite a few aspects of the game I'm not entirely happy with, but I'd have to say that my greatest regret is the Bed of Chaos. The artists and designers worked extremely hard and came up with some fantastic ideas, but it exposed a real problem in our production method. We had no way to find a common goal and work towards it when things went wrong. It's definitely something I want to correct in the future. Nakamura: In the early stages, I worked on the equipment for the warrior, the wanderer, the hunter and the bandit classes.

Waragai: Diligent people will notice I think, by that point you've already seen several large boulders. Miyazaki: Well, we pursued two main avenues when designing Dark Souls. In the initial concept stages I gave each of the artists a few simple "Image words" to use as a starting point, and then they were free to develop these in whatever way they wished. We then took the images we liked, adjusted them where needed, and used them to begin shaping the world. The Gaping Dragon, Egg Carrier and Gravelord Nito for example, all emerged during this concept stage and made it almost unchanged into the final game. Miyazaki: Yes I suppose so, but each of the areas had it's 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 together the 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. Miyazaki: Oh yeah! especially at the beginning. About the world, life and death, and with regards to the game world, the meaning of fire and role of the four kings. By talking like this with the artists I found it not only helped them develop their ideas, but it really helped me shape my idea of the world I wanted to create. I also tried hard not to be predictable or conservative. Of course we decided on a fantasy setting so we couldn't stray too far from that, but we had to be careful not to just take the easy route or the world would become boring. I really tried hard to maintain this. - Otsuka: Is there anything else in particular you tried to avoid? 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.Otsuka: The Mimic was quite different from those in other games, it's certainly the strongest I've ever encountered… I'm also a huge fan of the Gaping Dragon. It's a little different from the other dragons in the world, it's part of an ancient race of mineral based life forms, existing since long before the emergence of mankind, yet, despite its superiority over us, its time has passed, and it finds itself alone in the world, the last of its race forced to survive in any way it can. As to what triggered this change… well, the emergence of life corrupted it, it was warped by emotion and desire…

Miyazaki: As I said before, everything has it's particular shade or tone, blight town for example is the rawest, most disgusting area in the game, but looking at the area as a whole, I wanted it to feel both bitterly cold and possess a deep sadness, and that's the atmosphere I tried to build on. You could say I have a habit of working in this way, and I think you can really see that in Dark Souls' art direction. - Miyazaki: According to the artists, it was, but I believe that if your instructions are too specific, the designs you get will be somewhat devoid of creativity, so I try to give out just the most basic, essential information before handing it over to the artists' imaginations, which inevitable eclipses my own. My initial instructions are certainly abstract. For example, when designing equipment I'd simply say "make something you can trust with your life on the battlefield", or "make something that has enchantments to protect you". I think the artists probably didn't know what I was talking about half the time. It was actually a very difficult period of time for me, I was determined to have something substantial before I showed my designs to Mr. Miyazaki, to be able to explain my choices and defend them if needed. I worked on them intensively for a long time before I was finally ready to show them to anyone. In fact, as soon as I received the "OK", I went straight home. What’s the deal with all the different darksouls art books? I want to collect the ones with a lot of concept art.Miyazaki: Yes, we did, although I think the 3D artists would have heard that more than the concept artists, or those people in charge of lighting and effects. At first, we tried to explain it saying "you know, the light glows behind him like this", but in the end it was just easier to call it "Power"

Otsuka: Next, I'd like to talk about each of the areas in the game in a little more detail. I suppose we should start at the beginning in the Undead Asylum. Miyazaki: I was adamant that he should be carrying a lot of things. I think Waragai did an admirable job. Even in this world, where money has lost its value, he holds onto these precious objects and carries them along. Miyazaki: The concept images were extremely rough. They're great for getting the design across, but when it comes to building the model and animating it, it doesn't contain nearly enough information, so we had and-out-of house artist complete the design for us. The thing that takes the longest time and needs the most communication is of course the very first image, so having this work done for you is actually a very good method. In his book, I'm sure there are a lot of rough concept images, I think is interesting to compare them to the finished images.Waragai: I suppose it does. I've always liked fantasy but it wasn't until I started working on these designs that I really began to think about how the armour was put together. Then I started thinking, "how would you construct armour for someone who was really overweight?" and this design was the result. Nakamura: I heard later that Satake and Miyazaki were discussing my designs over ramen and saying how pleased they were.

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. Otsuka: Moving even further down to the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith: they have a different feel to the previous areas, don't they? This initial section concerning the basic design principles is, in all honesty, not the most interesting part of the interview, but I want to provide a complete translation so... Otsuka: Well, for some reason I was certain that a handsome man and beautiful woman would emerge from that armour.Otsuka: With all this freedom in the design process and the concept artists differing styles, was there a need to unify all the designs?