In a church in Hamburg, the pews have been rearranged and dozens of consoles have been lined up wall-to-wall. A makeshift stage has all but engulfed the altar, drinks are being served at the sidelines and when we first arrive, bleary-eyed from an early plane journey, organ music blares down from above as dry ice is pumped in from the sidelines. The very small part of my brain that identifies as a former Irish Catholic is thrilled and ever-so-slightly aghast at the blasphemy of it all, but for today, the congregation that has gathered for worship here are all pious members of the church of Dark Souls.
After a presentation and several hours of play, during which I've almost definitely assumed the wild-eyed thousand-yard stare my face reserves especially for From Software games, a Bandai Namco PR taps me on the shoulder and leads me to a narrow spiral staircase tucked away at the back of the church. I see that someone has torn off two strips of masking tape and fixed them to the bottom-most stone step in the style of Dark Souls' ingenious player messaging system. "TREASURE AHEAD" is written boldly in Sharpie. I continue to climb. On the top step, the same again, only this time it reads "BEWARE: BOSS."
Hidetaka Miyazaki is now From Software's biggest boss. In just 10 years he's climbed the ranks from industry novice, to game director, to company president. You'd never be able to tell, though, as he greets you warmly by the hand. It's so hard to reconcile the twisted, mournful monstrosities of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne with the smiling, affable man that spawned them. Dark fantasy and Gothic horror have become From Software's idiom, and that's unlikely to change following Miyazaki's appointment to company president. "Although this is going to be a turning point for the franchise," he says, echoing statements he made at last year's E3 when he expressed a desire to work in other genres, "it doesn't necessarily mean I'm not going to work on any dark fantasy games in the future. However, at least for the next title that I'll be working on after Dark Souls 3, that will be different from dark fantasy."
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