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FromSoftware owner Kadokawa has locked horns with investors over a proposed plan for the company's leadership. Amidst the crossfire, FromSoftware president and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki shared a simple message: we just want to make games, man.
Japanese outlet Denfaminico published a statement from Miyazaki today, June 12, after inquiring about his thoughts on Kadokawa's ongoing fight. A June 12 news release from Kadokawa confirms that it's elected to oppose shareholder proposals regarding its "medium-term management plan."
Miyazaki's statement (which I'll quote very sparingly, as it's been machine translated from Japanese) affirms that he and FromSoftware are familiar with Kadokawa's situation, but is quick to stress that the whole thing is complex and largely beyond them, and his thoughts here are purely his.
Miyazaki says he's "satisfied" with FromSoftware's development environment, which has seen it produce multiple hit games following Elden Ring, the studio's critical and commercial magnum opus. Armored Core 6 and Elden Ring Nightreign both performed well, and Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods is 2026-bound with a closed network test just announced for this summer.
It's not that FromSoftware can't make improvements to its processes, Miyazaki adds, but the studio is already able to "freely" create the games it wants to make, which is his priority. Preserving that development environment, which he says is one of the main reasons it's been able to make games "of value" in the past, and letting FromSoftware concentrate purely on making those games is "of the utmost importance."
Additionally, Miyazaki tells fans reading his message that they can look forward to upcoming titles, both announced games like The Duskbloods as well as "the unannounced titles yet to come."
The investor fight, per a June 5 Kadokawa news release, relates to "the company proposal to elect director candidates Takeshi Natsuno and Hiroo Unoura." In other words, some investors want to get rid of the CEO, citing alleged underperformance, and change the company's strategy.
As Denfaminico reports, the driving force in this pushback is investor Oasis Management Company, which, per Kadokawa's June 1 shareholder meeting notice, holds (a non-exact) 20,500 shares, or 13.76% of the company, making it the largest shareholder, beating Sony's 11.01%. Oasis has steadily raised its stake throughout the year, per Automaton.
Oasis even created a whole website, called "A Better Kadokawa," to air its grievances against the company – namely, that it "fails to capture FromSoftware's full value, ceding economics to external partners" and its "'quantity over quality' strategy for core Publication / IP Creation business has weakened profitability" as earnings per share declined "89% during [CEO Takeshi Natsuno's] tenure."
"Oasis Calls on KADOKAWA Investors to Vote AGAINST CEO Takeshi Natsuno," the website reads. Kadokawa said in a May 28 presentation that it "believes" this website "contains statements that differ from the Company's understanding and do not fully reflect the Company’s initiatives."
Oasis, you may recall, is the same company that once implored Nintendo to inject microtransactions into its games. An immortal letter from Oasis founder and still-CEO Seth Fischer, to late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, reads: "We believe Nintendo can create very profitable games based on in-game revenue models with the right development team. Just think of paying 99 cents just to get Mario to jump a little higher."
So, you can imagine why Kadokawa and, by extension, FromSoftware might hesitate.
Ever since Elden Ring, FromSoft fans have been awaiting the studio's next traditional single-player-focused action RPG. Armored Core 6 is its own beast, and Elden Ring Nightreign and The Duskbloods are more experimental multiplayer titles. However, Miyazaki's said that FromSoftware hasn't made some internal pivot away from single-player games, and Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki told us games like it are an extension of the studio's philosophy, not a change to it.
"We've had these two titles, Nightreign and the recently announced Duskbloods, with multiplayer at their core. But that's not necessarily to say that we are leaning in that specific direction going forward," Ishizaki told us in May 2025.
