What inspired Dark Souls?
Miyazaki was an avid child reader whose parents could not afford many books; he borrowed from the local library, including English-language fantasy and science fiction he did not fully understand, and let the illustrations and his imagination fill the gaps. He has cited that experience directly as a foundation of his design philosophy: a story the reader must assemble is a story the reader owns. His parents restricted video games until university, so the other half of the library was print too, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gamebooks, Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest.
The named influences stack up plainly in interviews: the games Ico, the early Dragon Quest games, The Legend of Zelda, and the King’s Field series; the manga Berserk, Saint Seiya, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Devilman; the literature of H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker and George R. R. Martin. And architecture, European, above all, used as storytelling: Anor Londo in Dark Souls is modelled in part on Milan Cathedral and the Château de Chambord.
