Déraciné Returns to From Software’s Adventure Roots, Story-Telling Reminiscent of Souls

From Software’s Déraciné was its third major reveal of E3 2018 and one of the two games that the company will release this year itself (along with Metal Wolf Chaos XD). Unlike many of the developer’s past games, Déraciné is a virtual reality title with a decidedly non-violent focus – it features a ghost trying to gain acceptance from students in a boarding school.

In a recent interview with PlayStation Blog, Hidetaka Miyazaki (director of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3) discussed a few things about Déraciné’s development. More specifically, he explains why the game took a VR approach.

“Firstly, as a developer, we knew that we needed to be up to speed with what was going on in the VR space. We were trying to find an opportunity to work on a project that would bring is into the fold…”

As for why Déraciné is more of adventure title, especially coming off of more action-oriented games, Miyazaki said, “As we were starting to wrap up Bloodborne and Dark Souls III we were obviously looking at what might come next, but at the same time we were looking at what we’d done in the past. We actually released a lot of adventure games prior to our more recent reputation for action titles. For example, we released one called Echo Night.

“We didn’t want to just bring that back, but at the same time we knew that we had heritage in adventure games. So that gave us the opportunity to start having an internal conversation about what we could do within that genre, while at the same time looking at VR – and the two ideas meshed well.”

Déraciné is definitely more serene in its atmosphere but there are a few things it has in common with Bloodborne and Dark Souls, most notably in terms of the story-telling and mystery.

“The way that we tell the story – the fragmented storytelling approach we take. The other thing is the quiet calmness that might evoke a certain mood that is unique to FromSoftware games. There is also a sense of beauty that I think is common throughout our games, even though the way that beauty is expressed can be very different. here is maybe a sense of mystery that is quite unique but maybe executed in a similar way to other of our games.”

Déraciné is scheduled to release later this year, exclusively for PlayStation VR. It’s being developed in collaboration with SIE Japan Studio.