Hidetaka Miyazaki, who served as director on Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, will not return as director for Dark Souls II. Instead Hidetaka Miyazaki will act as a supervisor and the game will be directed by Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura. Miyazaki stated there will be no direct connection in the story between Dark Souls and Dark Souls II. Source: Wikipedia, "Dark Souls II", available under the CC-BY-SA License.