Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-24494913-20140319193521/@comment-6003396-20140331071627

Here's another quote from a developer: "If Lordran was to be an area in a world called, say, Earth, the setting of this game will be somewhere completely different. The two places won’t necessarily interact directly with each other, but, from a visual concept [standpoint] at least, it will be within the same world." —Tomohiro Shibuya (source)

It was said around the same time as the Miyazaki quote, but the guy who said it was originally credited as "co-directer", along with Yui Tanimura, of Dark Souls II. I think Yui Tanimura is now the only one credited as the director, so I'm not sure what happened to the guy, but it's at least a quote from someone that was, at one time, directly involved with Dark Souls II. However, the quote from Miyazaki can't just be completely thrown out; although he didn't direct the game, he was said to have acted as a "supervisor" to Dark Souls II (as Dasvildanya said, which is also stated here). While I'll admit that that is a bit vague, I don't believe it has ever been revealed that "he was not involved in much of, [if] none of, the second game's development". And this isn't so much as a developer "opinion", but rather a truth (at the time that it was stated, at the very least) of Dark Souls II that was revealed by more than one source. Game developers do change their minds about things, but it would be surprising if they decided to do the exact opposite of what they described, especially when it concerns something that is so integral to the plot. And I agree that the date of the quotes leave some room for doubt, but until the devs state otherwise, the quotes stand.