Dark Souls Preview

In case case the continuous references from The Witcher 2’s developers made you curious about From Software’s efforts you may be interested in reading CheatCodeCentral’s preview of Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls. The preview appears to be based on existing information on the game but should still do a good job at offering an overview of the upcoming game. Here’s a sampling:

Dark Souls, though it won’t twist your tongue, has been cited as being at least as hard as the original. It’s been called a “spiritual successor” to Demon’s Souls, using many of the same design decisions but with a new setting and a story that has no connection to its predecessor. It will be another dark fantasy title with similar combat styles and online elements. However, Dark Souls puts much more emphasis on exploration, featuring an open world in which any area that a player can see can be reached. The dungeon design will be more complex as well. From Software has also done away with the combat classes and added more spells and weapons to give players an increased sense of freedom and customization.

Dark Souls is said to have similar multiplayer features to those of Demon’s Souls, including co-op play and PvP. However, From Software has done away with Soul Tendency to avoid the need for a centralized server. It seems as though there will still be no direct communication between players, but the game will involve “mutual role playing.” What this could mean is anyone’s guess, though the developer has promised to release more information on this cryptic phrase soon. The only detail given about the multiplayer was that players will be able to leave messages behind for others and see how their fellow adventurers died.