The intention behind the high difficulty of the games I direct is to evoke a feeling of joy and accomplishment in the player when they overcome these challenges.

I love throwing down the gauntlet and trying our hand at that new tech.

There was a board game called 'Sorcery,' which is one of my favorites, and I would often revisit the game. It's not a video game, but it definitely stands out in my mind as a game that impacted me.

I'm not necessarily a fan of horror genre of movies or books.

I really like 'Metal Wolf Chaos,' but it's not my title.

It's true that there was a lot of influence from 'Tenchu.' We even pondered making 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' a part of the 'Tenchu' series at first.

I've been familiar with western fantasy novels since I was a boy.

Dark Souls is in some ways an incomplete game, and I like to think that it has been completed by players, by their discoveries, as they moved along. I'd love to say that the nature of this incompleteness was completely deliberate, but it is both deliberate and by accident in different ways.

Unlike most kids in Japan, I didn't have a dream. I wasn't ambitious.

Growing up, as a kid, I loved to read. I liked to read books that were above my range. I always tried to aim higher and read difficult books.

To feel fulfilled, you must first have a goal that needs fulfilling. At the same time, it must actually be possible to fulfill said goal.

I think one of the studio's characteristics is to embrace wholeheartedly what we feel is interesting; what we perceive to be worthwhile, cool, or beautiful; and to place these ideals at the foundation of the games we make.

I believe I can do both the 'Bloodborne DLC' and 'Dark Souls 3.' This isn't the first time I've had to work on two projects at the same time.

I enjoy the process of adding elaboration into games and like to communicate with users through the details I create.

If the number of easy games is increasing nowadays, I guess it is because difficulty is not related to interesting and worthwhile game elements in many games among players.

'Deracine' is French for uprooting, or someone who's been displaced from their natural environment.

Now I'm president. I get to meet a lot of other company presidents. They're such weird people. I'm fascinated by them. I use some of them as enemy characters in our games.

I believe there are aspects of the narrative that become easier to understand by shifting the focus of the story to the characters. Illustrating growth and change in the protagonist becomes a simpler process, and these changes are, in fact, one of the themes of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice''s story.

If you had a game that said, 'Oops, you're dead. Now switch off the game,' it wouldn't be very successful. So you do need to have something to teach and be there to learn from, and we feel that death in video games is a positive experience.

Games are a media that relies on technology to be innovative and forward thinking and interesting. Personally, I love being at that forefront when something new comes out.

'Dark Souls' is my life's work; everything I came up with for 'Dark Souls III' is based on my personal preferences.

Demons, chaos, dragons - all of them are different incarnations and representations of our idea of death in 'Dark Souls.'

Perhaps the tranquillity of 'Deracine' heightens the violence in 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,' while the intensity of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' makes 'Deracine' all the more serene.

The more time I spend working on 'Sekiro,' the deeper I sink into this zone of blood and gore and conflict. But if I want to get out of it, I can walk over to the other side of the studio and ease myself into a completely different feeling when I work on 'Deracine.'

I've observed some surprise in the reactions so far from people who were not aware that FromSoftware does other things besides 'Souls.' This serves as a reminder to me that we have an established reputation - and that we should work on different games so we can be more flexible and build a broader profile.

When I was working on the first 'Dark Souls' - as far back as 'Demon's Souls,' actually - I didn't expect the player community to come up with speedrun contests or any of the strange new ways to play the games.

In 'Demon's Souls,' we tried to implement some features in a kind of experimental way, not being sure whether or not it would be popular, but we did it anyway so that we could see how people reacted.

The construction of 'Sekiro''s world is based on that of traditional Sengoku, or medieval Japan. To that end, we made sure to reference a lot of written materials on that period as well as actually visit several locations.

From the initial design stages of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,' we had the idea of the player being able to move dynamically through a detailed, multi-layered map. We found that a 'shinobi' type character was the key to achieving this in a way that was both realistic and cool.

The grappling hook allows for versatile and dynamic movement through the map, while a variety of shinobi-esque tools allow for all sorts of tricks and finesse. These are very important elements of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice''s gameplay and the protagonist's nature.

Being a director, I've had the privilege of heading a PS3 launch title. Looking back, I think the PS4 has made the development cycle much easier.