Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki is taking a backseat for Nightreign, but he did have some solid advice for the spin-offs director.

FromSoftware has kind of been the Miyazaki company for a while now, but it seems like slowly things are changing again, like with last year’s Armored Core 6, and now with the upcoming Elden Ring spin-off Nightreign. This co-op focused take on Elden Ring is being directed by Junya Ishizaki, who isn’t exactly a stranger to the Souls series, given that he’s been at FromSoft since the very first Dark Souls, and speaking to PC Gamer, he spoke of how he took on this role, as well as the advice that Miyazaki gave him when making the game. “The original suggestion to become a director came from Miyazaki-san,” Ishizaki shared.

The director explained that Miyazaki said to him that it was “about time you try yourself” when it came to directing, which was convenient considering Ishizaki “had some ideas he’d been cooking” that “got the green light” from Miyazaki after sharing them. When asked if Ishizaki received any particular advice from Miyazaki on taking over the director’s reigns (pun intended), Ishizaki said, “The one thing that sticks out is that he basically said ‘do it as you please,’ for this project,” which he also noted was “absolutely” a confidence boost.

Those five words really are probably the best summary of Miyazaki’s ethos as a game designer, considering how indulgent those games can be creatively, even though they do manage to find themselves balanced very well. Who could have guessed that an artist being allowed to more or less do as they please could produce interesting results!

Nightreign is currently scheduled to be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC sometime in 2025, but in the meantime you might want to sign-up for a network test set to take place in 2025. You’ll be able to sign-up for that January 10, so just keep your eyes peeled in Bandai Namco and FromSoft’s socials when that date rocks around.