The Bizarre Behind-The-Scenes Foot Shaming In 'Elden Ring' And 'Dark Souls'

From Software's long-time fans might have noticed that the most significant change the company's games have gone through since Hidetaka Miyazaki's arrival is that they began to be good display a lot of women in their bare feet. Is this a strange thing in Japanese media, especially in games where anyone who wants shoes needs to wander into a crypt full of spooky skeletons and re-kill them in order to take their cursed-ass clothes? What's certain, at least in the headcanon of American audiences, is that Miyazaki is a serious foot fetishist. We're about to state their case in as much detail as possible without making this article a spinoff to wikifeet dot com.

It all began when the very first game in the series, Demon's Souls, decided to introduce “The Maiden In Black,” a character who seemingly hates footwear.

That's just how one wacky mystical person who's probably capable of making the ground warm wherever they go would behave, right? Well yeah, but she's just one out of one hell of a lot of characters doing the same. More suspiciously, some of these characters even have access to some ancient type of nail polish.

Now let's take a look at the Emerald Herald, our friend from Dark Souls 2. You might have the sad realization that her feet are covered.

Does this break our little conspiracy theory? Quite the contrary! Dark Souls 2 is the only game in the Souls series not directed by Miyazaki himself. The only plot thickened when just last year's remake of Demon's Souls made players rave over the detail they put into the Maiden in black's soles.

But it's unclear whether Miyazaki even had anything to do with that directly since the remake was held by Bluepoint and not by From Software. What we do know, however, is that he went through a lot of work to make sure that bare feet leave specific marks on the beaches of Elden Ring.

And the weirdest part is that we now know for a fact that the mocking has made him self-conscious about it. Miyazaki just recently admitted to self-censoring barefoot characters in Elden Ring out for fear of getting mocked further by Western players. For Malenia, one of the bosses in the game, he went as far as to only dress her feet in armor.

Please don't let this get to Quentin Tarantino; the ensuing collab would result in an even weirder message system that probably could do without.

Top Image: Sony, Bandai Namco