Dark Souls: Design Works

Product Information

Features armor and weapon designs, character concepts, creatures, locations, rough sketches, an exclusive interview with the game's creators, and more. Unlike Hyrule Historia, which contained multiple interviews and tidbits to shed some more light on Zelda‘s massive universe, there aren’t a whole lot of extras here to augment your enjoyment of the Soulsseries. The designs are great but somehow they don't have the same forbidding feeling you get when playing the game.

Miyazaki: 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. I was a bit embarrassed, but that awkward, jerky motion actually conveys what it would be like if a human was trying to force him or herself to become a dragon, so in the end, after some slight adjustments, I gave it the "OK". Waragi: Do you think people would have been able to guess all that simply by looking at the boss room?Despite his size, he's actually the youngest of Izalith's children, he stands gazing up at the ruins where his sisters live.

Miyazaki: As with Priscilla, I had a pretty clear image of how I wanted the character to look and behave so I entrusted his design to an out-of-house artist. As I mentioned earlier, each artist began with just a few simple "image words" and developed their designs from that.

Poor Artorias (one of my favorite characters) is lumped in this section, before he ended up heading up his own DLC campaign.

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". As I mentioned earlier, each artist began with just a few simple "Image words" and developed their designs from that, well the words which inspired each artist's designs and they way they chose to use them was very different. They have developed in almost complete isolation, so their customs and traditions are also completely different. Miyazaki: Well this is going to get a little abstract, but I really like equipment that shows feeling or emotion. You'll get to see nearly every character, environment, weapon, even inventory items in all their glory.Symbols contain inherent meaning, they wouldn't be symbols if they didn't, but it's difficult to add new meaning to that symbol. He was saying "I want it to be like this" while acting out the motion, and of course, I had no idea what he was doing. This is not to say the in-game artwork is a collective slouch, only to drive home how jaw-droppingly gorgeous and detailed the concepts that inspired the final product were. If you asked me to describe what this "elegance" is… well, I think you just have to look at the designs and judge for yourself, but it really is one of the most important factors in everything I oversee. It may sound like a poor solution, but I actually had an image for the Painted World from the start, I'm just happy I was able to combine that image and the prototype map.