Hidetaka Miyazaki

Miyazaki was born on September 19, 1974, and grew up in Shizuoka, Japan. He later attended Keio University and graduated with a degree in social science, later getting a job as an account manager for the US-based Oracle Corporation to pay for his sister's college tuition fees. Upon a friend's recommendation, Miyazaki played the 2001 video game Ico, which caused him to want a career change as a game designer. Miyazaki found that few game companies would employ him at age 29 with no experience working in the industry, with one of the few being FromSoftware. He began working there as a planner on Armored Core: Last Raven in 2004, joining the game's development midway through. He later directed Armored Core 4 and its direct sequel, Armored Core: For Answer.

Upon learning about what later became Demon's Souls, Miyazaki became excited at the prospect of a fantasy action role-playing game and offered to help. The project, up until he was assigned to it, was considered a failure by the company. He believed the company's outlook on the game allowed him to take full control of the project as any further failed ideas would not hurt it. Although the game was received negatively at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show and sold far under expectations upon release, it began to pick up after a few months and soon found publishers willing to release the game outside of Japan. Miyazaki was promoted to company president in May 2014 following the success of the game's spiritual successor Dark Souls, which released in 2011. It was considered unprecedented for a person to change careers in Japan and become company president within 10 years.

In 2012, Sony Computer Entertainment approached FromSoftware concerning cooperative development on a new game. Miyazaki asked about the possibility of developing a game for eighth-generation consoles, and the concept of Bloodborne developed from there. Even though there were no story or setting connections to FromSoftware's previous games, Miyazaki said that it carried the "DNA" of Demon's Souls and its specific level design. Development ran parallel to that of Dark Souls II, which Miyazaki supervised only as he was unable to direct both games simultaneously. Miyazaki returned to the Dark Souls series as the lead director on Dark Souls III, which released early the following year. After its release, he announced his intentions to personally stop development on the Dark Souls series. His next project was the 2018 virtual reality game Déraciné and the 2019 action-adventure game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, with the latter winning several awards. Miyazaki directed the 2022 release Elden Ring, approaching American fantasy writer George R. R. Martin to provide its worldbuilding. The game sold more than 25 million copies and has been cited as among the greatest video games of all time. Miyazaki served as the initial director of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023) before Masaru Yamamura assumed the role.

Miyazaki disclosed in 2019 that he recently had a son. In 2024, he revealed that he had a daughter.