Earlier this week, it was announced that Kentaro Miura, creator of the manga Berserk, had passed away at the age of 54. From Final Fantasy 7's iconic Buster Sword to the monster and world design of the Dark Souls series, it is hard to overstate Berserk's impact on video games. However, the news of Miura's passing seemed to particularly affect the Final Fantasy 14 community, who immediately organized a large gathering to mourn him

, and the game's developer, Tadashi Miura, has been a major force in the community's support of Final Fantasy 14.

On multiple servers, thousands of players donned dark knight gear, much like Berserk's protagonist Guts, and prayed in the streets of Uludaha, one of the major cities. It was a moving and emotional memorial to one of Japan's most influential anime artists and creators. And to the players who joined in Miura's memorial, game director Naoki Yoshida sent a message: thank you.

"It shows how much people received from Miura-san and his work," Yoshida told us in an interview yesterday.

"It was heartwarming to see how much of an impact he had on the players. I also want to thank the players for recognizing this. Even the players in Japan have been greatly affected by this and the shock among the fans."

It is a sadness that Yoshida shares deeply with his players. He began reading Berserk decades ago, when it was published in the monthly magazine Young Animal. It's no exaggeration to say that I kept buying the latest issue of the manga magazine just to read Berserk," Yoshida said. So definitely a very sad and unfortunate loss."

"To be honest," Yoshida continued, "this is not limited to Final Fantasy 14, but to any game I've worked on, there are elements of Miura-san's work that have influenced me, whether consciously or unconsciously. Final Fantasy 14's Dark Knight fights wielding a huge sword. I got the idea from the way Guts stands in that panel of "Berserk," and it's an image I showed the team to use as a reference when thinking about (the Dark Knight). Many times I also referred to [Berserk] when thinking about the standing position and composition in each cut scene."

Yoshida said that referencing [Berserk] became a tried-and-true method for conveying atmosphere and style in several cutscenes in FF14. Sometimes, when Mr. Yoshida was unable to convey in words what he had in mind, he would show the development team a particular frame from the manga." Miura-san's work was indeed very artistic, and the way he drew the cool elements was wonderful."

"Yoshida showed the development team specific panels of the manga.

"It's immeasurable how much of an impact he had on everyone," Yoshida said, clearly emotional. 'It's a very unfortunate loss.'

Kentaro Miura died of acute aortic dissection on May 6. His passing was first made public earlier this week when Young Animal's editorial department released a statement via Berserk's official social media channels.