King’s Field – 2001 Developer Interview

Today, we spoke with Shinichiro Nishida of FromSoftware, who was involved in the production of all King's Field titles and served as producer for the latest installment, King's Field IV.

—What prompted FromSoftware, originally a business application development company, to move into home video game consoles?

Nishida: We developed specialized applications on a per-contract basis. It was tough business then, and it still is now. We had concerns that continuing down that path would lead to a shrinking market, coupled with a desire to release our own creations to the world. So it wasn't exactly a revolution for us, but we decided to try making games. The PlayStation was about to launch, and SCE was very supportive.

—Since this was before the PlayStation launch, I imagine the development tools and environments were somewhat lacking. Did you face any difficulties in that regard?

Nishida: Actually no, since we were originally an application developer and everyone was a programmer. In the very beginning we couldn't figure out how to display polygons, but once we got that working, it was like, "ah, so that's how it's done." So I don't recall the lack of development tools being particularly troublesome for us.

King's Field I

—What made you choose the fantasy genre for your first game?

Nishida: A lot of computer engineers are really into games, right? Me and the president, for instance, we were huge gamers. We'd been playing games on early computers like the Apple II since way back. So naturally, when we thought "RPG", we had a certain image in our heads and we drifted towards fantasy. We aimed to capture that feeling we enjoyed in Wizardry, but expressed through the PlayStation hardware of the time. I don't think we consciously copied Wizardry, though. (laughs)

—The King's Field series is known for throwing players into situations without any detailed explanation. Were you worried about how that would be received?

Nishida: We were worried, but at the same time we genuinely didn't know how people would react. We weren't expecting people to just freeze up after being dropped into the game… I mean, you can swing your sword, you'll figure it out. (laughs) Honestly, we didn't have time to make a tutorial due to the development schedule. For the first King's Field, there were parts of it that, by necessity, we had to leave somewhat unfinished, but even those parts ended up being cleverly executed in the end. However, during the development of the first King's Field, president Naotoshi Zin said he wanted to evoke a feeling of "loneliness" in players. That's why we started the game that way.

—The lack of a linear, fixed route in the story makes progressing through the game a bit confusing, resulting in a high barrier to entry. Was this freedom and lack of constraints something you aimed for from the start?

Nishida: RPGs shouldn't inherently have rules like "you must do this." We approached it based on common sense—what feels natural. Not thinking "this is how other games do it" or "this part should be like this in a game," but rather, "this is how someone would respond if you talked to them," or "you probably wouldn't talk to a complete stranger." Starting with KFII, you can kill NPCs, but internally, monsters and NPCs share the same parameter setup. Hit points, defense, and the experience points gained upon defeat are set for every character. Ultimately, I suppose we weren't constrained by existing games.

—Did development of the first game proceed smoothly?

Nishida: Development began in March 1994. I believe the main programmer joined after our initial preparations were complete, around June or July. We wrapped development in October, and it was released two months later.

—That's incredible speed. Did you run into any major issues?

Nishida: One issue was that Sony modified our programming library, which caused the fog effects to stop working properly. The previous library rendered fog beautifully, but the new one failed to display it correctly. When we asked why, they said it changed because of another manufacturer's implementation. Since no other company was using fog effectively in 3D, they basically told us, "Sorry FromSoftware, you'll just have to put up with this." (laughs)

King’s Field II

—King's Field II came out just six months after the first game.

Nishida: Even though we'd wrapped development on King's Field, the team wasn't satisfied, so we continued doing research using the finished version as a base. Essentially, KF and KFII were connected in development; the first game was like an interim report. The PlayStation launched on December 3rd, and King's Field came out just two weeks later. It performed sluggishly at first. It gained traction on Nifty's1 game forum, and after that the buzz spread, and I believe sales took off suddenly after the new year.

By then, we felt confident enough to think we could make a sequel. Development accelerated rapidly after that. KFII launched about six months later, in July 1995. Of course, if the first game had flopped completely, it would have been scrapped without ever seeing the light of day. (laughs)

—Part II was set on an island.

Nishida: After the first game, we decided we wanted to do something outdoors this time. Of course we had to draw a boundary somewhere, so we came up with the idea of setting it on an island. That was one of the first things we decided for King's Field II.

—Were there any particularly challenging aspects of production during the I and II era?

Nishida: With the first King's Field, I was so engrossed that I can't remember much other than that feeling of finally being done. (laughs) The tough part was later in the development, before the memory cards arrived. During the balancing phase, the team would ask me to playtest certain parts. "Get to the third underground layer without dying at this level." I would somehow managed to reach it as instructed, only to be told, "We changed the program, so you have to do it again." (laughs) We had a lot of struggles like that.

By the time we got to KFII, the game was much larger, and we agonized over the world design. The biggest struggle with King's Field II was not being able to capture the atmosphere of the first game. "What exactly is ‘atmosphere’?", we asked ourselves. The first King's Field was very rough in terms of graphic quality, but I think it had more atmosphere as a game. By KFII we had more know-how and could create prettier graphics, but conversely, that made it look too polished--they looked like graphics created in a program rather than organic parts of a natural environment.

Figuring out how to resolve this point was the most painful part of that development. Ultimately, we tried various approaches like reducing the color palette and altering patterns. Also, this is purely my personal opinion, but out of the four King's Field games, I personally like the first one the most. I feel it best captures that oppressive heaviness and suffocating sensation. Figuring out how to achieve that with modern graphics is, I believe, a key challenge for FromSoftware.

King's Field III

—There was a bit of a gap between II and III. Was development ongoing during that time?

Nishida: The period between KFII and KFIII was mainly experimentation and research. We made little demos, things like cats hopping around on the screen, (laughs) or racing games. We made various things, but none of them were viable as products. That's when we decided to revisit King's Field. That was around the end of 1995. Since the first two games were frequently criticized for being too hard to get into, when we started KFIII we consciously aimed to broaden the accessibility. We planned the initial map to feel like a tutorial, we made combat more relaxed, and we placed an inn right nearby. But it didn't really change much, did it? (laughs)

—I think it changed quite a bit. (laughs)

Nishida: One thing we really wanted to do with KFIII was to make it a much wider world. But this time it ended up being too wide, which is something we learned from. (laughs) When a map has good visibility, players naturally want to look around and take it all in. Then they get curious and start wandering around, gradually losing track of where they should go, which ends up taking a lot of time. So while we aimed for "more expansive," I think we might have gone a bit overboard. (laughs)

—The maps also lost their multi-layered vertical structure.

Nishida: Yeah, they did. We had planned to include some of those in KFIII, but the data ended up being much larger than before. Just looking at the data size per map, it wasn't feasible. We also considered a system where all the movement was done outdoors, and the battles took place in underground areas, but it didn't work out.

The main issue with KFIII was the fact that what was possible in KFII (multi-layered verticality) wasn't possible anymore. The running speed is also slower in KFIII. And we'd already reached the limit in KFII of the number of polygons the PlayStation could render. Given those constraints, "what makes KFII and KFIII different? became the biggest theme of the development. When the KFIII development go underway, after I was appointed producer there was a lull period of about two months where we couldn't do anything. And during that time, I agonized over the question "What is King's Field, really?"

—KFIII has more NPCs than ever before, too.

Nishida: We placed greater emphasis on the story in KFIII. There are more NPCs, and there are also mandatory events required to clear the game. In that sense, it's a bit different from previous entries. But conversely, as a game I think it's easier to explain to people. (laughs)

—King's Field fans seem to split into the KFIII faction and the KFII faction.

Nishida: Well, it's about 70% KFII fans. (laughs)

—That sounds like a data point that would appear in King's Field. (laughs) How long was the development for KFIII?

Nishida: The actual development was about 7 to 8 months. But there was a period of trial and error before that. The team was much larger compared to I and II. Back then, we still had an in-house application team…

—By the time of III, after I and II, FromSoftware had definitely become synonymous with games.

Nishida: Actually, people in stores still didn't recognize the FromSoftware name then. You had to say "King's Field" for them to understand. (laughs)

—Finally, now that KFIV is complete, what are your thoughts when you look back on the first three games?

Nishida: As time has passed, I've forgotten the tough parts. (laughs) I worked in a different capacity for each King's Field game, so when I look back at those games now I feel each one contains the essence of the struggles I went through at that specific moment in time.

As for FromSoftware's perspective, with the first game we were desperate. Then with KFII we aimed to build on that base, and with KFIII we tried to develop it even further. Of course, that same mindset carried over to KFIV. Moving forward, we want to continue nurturing the King's Field series as a flagship title that showcases FromSoftware's technical prowess.

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