Gaming United Hidetaka Miyazaki Edition

Praise the Sun!

Welcome to the latest edition of the world renowned Gaming United! February is here, Elden Ring is almost here, so this Ultra Special Edition is dedicated to a legendary pioneer, one of Japan’s finest visionaries, Hidetaka Miyazaki!

Miyazaki had a very difficult childhood. His parents couldn’t afford to buy him comics/manga, so the only way to find something to read was at the public library. That’s how he discovered his passion for western fantasy novels, lost worlds, unearthly creatures and the theme of death. But most of them were in English and he couldn’t fully understand what was going on. So he filled in any gaps using his imagination. He later went to study Political Sciences, but he never really intended to follow this career.

He found a job at Oracle. That was the kind of job that’s completely unfulfilling, a really suffocating routine that feels like dying a little every day, while his Japanese code of honour prevented him from asking what he technically deserved. But he never stopped thinking of any possible ways of changing this painful routine. Then the life-changing moment finally occurred. His friends suggested him a game called ICO on PS2. That was it. He was instantly amazed by it and it made him realise how endless possibilities are in creating new games. That’s when he quitted his job at Oracle to pursue a career in the gaming industry.

He was 29 years old and lacking any experience. He was able to find a much lowly paid job as a programmer at FromSoftware. A few years later and after a lot of grinding, he managed to convince FromSoftware to give him a chance at reviving a project that was about to be discarded. He completely changed everything fundamentally and Demon’s Souls was born! It was only the beginning, as he was about to release a genre-defining series of games. And the best is yet to come!