Why replace Miyazaki?

So I've spent the last few hours looking up every piece of information I could about DkS2, and honestly the fact that they are replacing the wonderful director against his own will so they can keep it 'fresh' made me so angry I punched myself in the head...alot.

So why on god's earth would they remove the man from the game to keep it fresh? There is absolutely nothing good about that.

Miyazaki is working on some other title and he was slowing down the evolution process of the series. No need to worry though, even Miyazaki himself said in the interview that the future of the series is in good hands and the core essence of Dark Souls will not change.

Yes, I've read the interviews. How in hell is Miyazaki holding the series back? Anything that he is stopping the series from doing is probably not something it should be doing!
The man said he wanted to make the game but From and Namco said "no, we need someone to make it 'fresh'" and that sounds like just the worst thing imaginable. The new director said he wants to make the game more actiony and the plot direct. These are things I don't want in Dark Souls and things Miyazaki probably doesn't want in Dark Souls. And that's not even mentioning the possibilities raised by the accessibility thing although I'd like to think that part would minimal.
Even if the core is the same it's the details that make the game great. I am not at all confident the game is in good hands.
It reeks of a high-handed corporate decision to replace Miyazaki because he did want to do what they wanted him to do.

People seem to forget that Miyazaki is not FROM SOFTWARE, there is plenty of other talent there that made the first souls games awesome. True, Miyazaki had his part, but there is no reason to freak out about him being only in supervising role, there are other people in FROM that want to make great game and listen to their fans, it would be nice if the fans would give some more respect to the rest of the team as they give to Miyazaki.
Evolution is not always bad eventhough it would seem scary right now. Dark Souls to me (and I'm sure to many others on this forum) was a 10/10 game, but even still there are some things that can be made better. Some of these changes demand bigger budget, with bigger budget we need more sales and for making bigger sales they need wider audience.
Wider audience can be achieved with many little things that make the game more "accessible" probably meaning making it easier to pick up the game and start playing even if you have no experience about souls games (this was definitely not case with Dark Souls) by making a better tutorial and creating better understanding about game mechanics and what different items do so it wouldn't be so damn hard curve to start this game for a new player.
Maybe Miyazaki didn't want these kind of things implemented in the game? Who knows.
Of course there is a chance FROM will deliver a **** game, but do you really believe it? I have no doubt it will be a great game until I see some actual game footage, since I trust FROM SOFTWARE as a team.

"Dark Souls to me (and I'm sure to many others on this forum) was a 10/10 game, but even still there are some things that can be made better. Some of these changes demand bigger budget, with bigger budget we need more sales and for making bigger sales they need wider audience."

What changes do you think warrant a new director and a higher budget?

I'm all for increasing the fan base by making some game mechanics more obvious but if they had to remove Miyazaki to do the things they want to do then that sounds like a hell of alot more than that. This is Miyazaki's brain child and now they are replacing him with people who never worked on the games. The director is the most important role in making the game, he's who tells each department exactly what to do then meshes them together and different directors will get very different results.
Without Miyazaki I doubt the game will have the same charm, soul, and sense of consistancey.
I still see zero reason for Miyazaki to be forced out of his own game. If he said 'I'll let these guys do it while I move on' I would feel more at ease but no they refused to let him direct it and that can be nothing but worrisome.

Sorry, but as Juutas said, Miyazaki is not FROM. And since we haven't exactly seen any of the new stuff in action yet, I think its helpful to first reserve judgment and see if its any good.

As someone else already said, "Don't start the funeral until you have a dead body first."

I think it would have been fairer to Miyazaki to give him a shot asking him to try evolve the series and a chance with the higher budget, but I got a feeling he's gonna be froms star man to get series popular now, so probably won't turn out bad for him.

All I know is I've liked what the new guy has suggested and showed us so far, apart from accessibility but whatever.

That's all well and good but to me replacing that man cannot be a good thing. We all know From has some talented people working on the game but they are not the director, the game has new leadership, and without the right leadership all the beautiful artists and crafty programmers in the world cannot simply throw the game together themselves.

The real question here is what does Dark Souls need that Miyazaki cannot provide?

Why does the man who created this game have to be forcfully removed from the sequel's development?

I have no answers.

Perhaps this will help reassure you a little for now?

Thank you very much! I actually read that earlier, and in fact the part of the interview where the new director talks comforted me more (It's not in that link though).

Miyazaki is so modest, it really impresses me when he talks about how he was devestated that he had to patch the game after it released! The game didn't have to much wrong with it unpatched!

Anyways I do have alot of hope for the game it's just this one issue that bothers me, along with the new director wanting to have a direct story and 'more action'

One VERY troubling thing about that interview is this:
"I decided that we should have our own game servers this time, and that we shouldn't sell individual items or weapons as DLC—stuff like that."
WAS FROM ACTUALLY THINKING ABOUT DOING THAT!?

Thank goodness he's looking out for us!

Did you also keep scrolling to get to the Shibuya interview? His is pretty decent too IMO.

I referenced in my last post:
"and in fact the part of the interview where the new director talks comforted me more"
Although when I scroll down in that link that part of the interview isn't there, I've seen it elsewhere.

So tell me, why do you think From thinks they need a new director to make the game 'fresh'?

That's the thing. I'm one of the few people that admits that we don't know exactly what went down that caused this decision. While we can surmise and speculate here and there, it still stands that we don't know what happened. I think its perfectly natural for us to assume the worst and just say that the series is screwed, because if we call it now, we won't have to face a bigger sense of disappointment later when we actually see the game. It's understandable.

But all I can REALLY do is take what Miyazaki and Shibuya say at face value and trust that they understand what's important to the series. If they truly do, then that means that they only intend to polish what's there and add new and cool things. Hopefully, that's the case. I just want to see some gameplay and detailed interviews about the game mechanics before I join the doom and gloom club.

This quote from Shibuya is the most reassuring:
"In reality, I’m sure we’ll get quite a few new players with Dark Souls II, but existing players will probably represent the majority, so we need to make sure we satisfy their needs."
Existing players being the priority is the best thing I could hope a new director would say.
As long as Dark Souls II has the heart and soul of Souls game I can look over some surface changes.


But why, why do they have to change directors if the game isn't facing massive change? This is the cause of the uncertainty.

I think Miyazaki was just self-conscious about DkS II not being "new" enough. There is only so many new ideas one person can come up with, and Miyazaki possibly thought he reached his limit. New devs would actually be a good option in that case. Recycled games are never a good thing, they need to ev olve eventually.

I honestly wish Miyazaki was still there, but I think the other two guys will do fine if the core experiences are really left untouched.

Yeah, that actually is very reassuring. I tend to think that our natural resistance to change can sometimes keep us from discovering new and wonderful things that we didn't know were missing. Because fans rarely realize that, its the job of the developer to help fans see those things. If he knows what he is doing, Shibuya won't destroy the things that happen to be the game's core strengths. In fact, he would capitalize on them.

And I'm sure that we are going to see massive changes. That's just how things work. It's likely that Miyazaki stubbornly resisted some of these changes, which caused the shift in leadership. Has anyone ever considered the possibility that some of the changes that Miyazaki resisted could be positive changes? That's not so farfetched, ya know. The truth is, this isn't his game. When you work with publishers on a game, you don't own it. That's how business goes in the industry. From and NamcoBandai have the right to take it in any direction they choose. If they are smart, they won't abandon what matters the most. Again, I'm reserving judgment until I get more concrete info.

"Has anyone ever considered the possibility that some of the changes that Miyazaki resisted could be positive changes?"

I've considered it but honestly I think that's best case scenario. We'll have to wait for gameplay footage though. It will tell us more than anything else.
As long as 'fresh' doesn't mean (and I know it's getting to be cliche around here) 'more like Skyrim'.
I just really hope it's not going to disappoint us.
I think we'll be well off if they don't try to make it something that it isn't.

Loken wrote:"Has anyone ever considered the possibility that some of the changes that Miyazaki resisted could be positive changes?"

I've considered it but honestly I think that's best case scenario. We'll have to wait for gameplay footage though. It will tell us more than anything else.
As long as 'fresh' doesn't mean (and I know it's getting to be cliche around here) 'more like Skyrim'.
I just really hope it's not going to disappoint us.
I think we'll be well off if they don't try to make it something that it isn't.

I agree 100%

Acarnatia wrote:Yeah. Liken it to this; Miyazaki was Guillermio Del Toro, and suddenly a movie everyone thought he was going to direct was announced to be instead directed by someone else entirely. There's reason to suspect that it will be Stephen Spielsberg. That's a reasonable concern. The only issue with this is that is that it being Stephen Spielsberg is a rumor that may or may not be true. It could, in fact, be someone almost, as or even better for that movie. I myself am hopeful based on the trailer. (except for the 'face the dragons! join us! tag) It's the closest thing we have to absolute information about the game as the statements in the interview(s) were largely vague aside from a few specific points.

Sure, but there is a difference between having a reasonable concern and already drawing a conclusion. Again, as I've said many times, I'm concerned too. But some people have already buried the game before seeing anything.

Cheers for posting the link, really interesting, in particular:

4Gamer:
What’s the other main part to your role?

Miyazaki:
It’s overall supervision, that involves making sure that I convey things like the core game mechanics that I feel should not be taken out of a sequel to Dark Souls, as well as what we (the development team of the previous title) learned from working on the game, and the many points that we felt could be improved. Also, if I feel things are getting a bit off course, I explain the concept again, and ask the team to consider making adjustments. In reality, there have already been a quite a few cases where I've done such things, and depending on the situation, I may need to re-think the boundaries of the “supervisor” role.

Miyazaki:
In general, I understand the concern, however when it comes to Dark Souls, so many people in the media and so many of our players have given us very passionate and amazing reviews and impressions, as well as criticism and complaints, and the majority of these are all kind of pointing in the same direction. From a creator’s perspective, this makes Dark souls a very fortunate and rare title, indeed


DS2 sounds like its in pretty good hands to me, I havent read the Shibuya section but what heartens me is that theyve been taking note of the positive feedback from gamers and reviewers alike and are well aware of why it has made such an impression. Miyazaki is a smart guy, and after reading that im positive he wouldnt allow it to change beyond recognition, it sounds like he still has a real say in things!

Miyazaki was replaced because he refused to dumb down the game.

Juutas wrote:People seem to forget that Miyazaki is not FROM SOFTWARE, there is plenty of other talent there that made the first souls games awesome. True, Miyazaki had his part, but there is no reason to freak out about him being only in supervising role, there are other people in FROM that want to make great game and listen to their fans, it would be nice if the fans would give some more respect to the rest of the team as they give to Miyazaki.
Evolution is not always bad eventhough it would seem scary right now. Dark Souls to me (and I'm sure to many others on this forum) was a 10/10 game, but even still there are some things that can be made better. Some of these changes demand bigger budget, with bigger budget we need more sales and for making bigger sales they need wider audience.
Wider audience can be achieved with many little things that make the game more "accessible" probably meaning making it easier to pick up the game and start playing even if you have no experience about souls games (this was definitely not case with Dark Souls) by making a better tutorial and creating better understanding about game mechanics and what different items do so it wouldn't be so damn hard curve to start this game for a new player.
Maybe Miyazaki didn't want these kind of things implemented in the game? Who knows.
Of course there is a chance FROM will deliver a **** game, but do you really believe it? I have no doubt it will be a great game until I see some actual game footage, since I trust FROM SOFTWARE as a team.

Completely agreed my Scandinavian friend. Also the music of your country is awesome.

carlucio wrote:Miyazaki was replaced because he refused to dumb down the game.

Yup, because that's EXACTLY what was said in that interview.

ak1287 wrote:

carlucio wrote:Miyazaki was replaced because he refused to dumb down the game.

Yup, because that's EXACTLY what was said in that interview.

Yup, because game interviews are about honesty rather than about PR, buzz, marketing, etc.