**Were you ever expecting the series' fans to create challenges for themselves, such as the speedruns and alternative control playthroughs?**That's been a real surprise. Since I started working in games professionally, I've had a lot of opportunities to travel abroad and see buildings and landmarks in Europe and even further afield, churches and such, and they serve as great influences too.
I've been familiar with western fantasy novels since I was a boy. What draws you to that?**A lot of it comes from experiences I had during my childhood, including through fiction. **Your games embrace a very European visual style, rather than the anime aesthetic found in a lot of Japanese games. Rather than the game itself automatically telling the story, the player gets more value from it when they themselves find out hints of plot from items or side-characters they encounter in the world. That's actually my biggest reason for focusing on environmental and subtle storytelling. Another side is, I want to leave the interpretation of the world's stories to the player.
What appeals to you about that approach?**First of all, I don't dislike direct storytelling - people seem to think that about my games! Actually, the truth is, I'm just not good at implementing direct narrative in my games. **The Souls series is known for environmental storytelling and implied lore, rather than a direct narrative players work through.
