Dark Souls: What is Best in Death?

Dark Souls, what is best in death?

Crush the players, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

That is good. As the successor to 2009’s sleeper hit Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls keeps much of what worked the first time around, while adding one crucial element: greater difficulty. The sadists which comprise developer From Software have no reservations in telling players they will be defeated mightily, and often. When the slogan of your game is “prepare to die” I think you’re dropping hints as to what players should expect. So much death.

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Dark Souls: You Play and You Die

It is absolutely sick, twisted, and sadistic that a game exists which you're never meant to conquer. A game thats sole purpose is to utterly destroy you, mentally, physically, and spiritually. A game that humiliates you to the point of submission, where you may never come back to play again. That is Dark Souls, one of the games I am most excited to play this year.

Most times I like a good challenge, but I also like to be able to beat my games with minimal failure. When it comes to Dark Souls though, I could care less. I eagerly await the frustrating touch of Death before gigantic creatures I was never meant to defeat, all in the name of ep1c lo0tz.

Dark Souls: Welcome to Die

The title for the latest Dark Souls trailer is 'Prepare to Die'. For any other game I'd be all like CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, you can't kill me! But this is Dark Souls, the successor of Demon's Souls, so I will swallow my pride and accept that I will die horribly on numerous occasions. 

The trailer is mostly a montage to some of the many deaths that will befall you, should you be brave enough to challenge Dark Souls. And when it's not quite showing the player dying, it's showing something that will most likely end up killing you very shortly. Demon's Souls was a game for masochists, and Dark Souls is picking up right where the predecessor left off.

Dark Souls will release this October, and in the event PSN is still down at that time, fear not! For the first time, the controller-breaking difficulty of From Software's role-playing series will be available on Xbox 360.

Also comes the news that a preorder will bump you up from standard to the collector's edition for no extra charge. The $60 entry fee nets you a metalbook case, art book, digital download soundtrack, behind the scenes development video, and a mini strategy guide. Trust me, you'll want to preorder if only for that strategy guide alone. Demon's Souls was an incredibly nuanced and complex game, with tons of secrets and strategies that one cannot discover on his or her own. You will need all the help you can get.

Upon Further Inspection, Dark Souls is Demon's Souls

Yesterday's Dark Souls information-blitz was a short lived bit of fun, because now we've got screenshots and a big, beautiful trailer. Who needs information when we have pics and flicks! 

By looking at the aforementioned media, it's quite easy to see that Dark Souls is Demon's Souls, basically. And, call me a masochist, but I could not be any more excited. 

Dark Souls Screenshot Gallery

Demon's Souls Successor Project Dark Becomes Dark Souls

Demon's Souls is an incredibly challenging role playing game which released in late 2009 exclusively on PlayStation 3. While it never became a household name, Demon's Souls has a pretty large and extremely dedicated cult following who still play the game to this day, because it's fun to get the shit kicked out of you and lose all your 'souls'.

Well, not too long ago, a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls was announced. Developers From Software didn't release many details aside from the working title, Project Dark. As of today, we can begin filling in some of the details we never received.

The project is now rightfully named Dark Souls. It will maintain the level of frustratingly delicious difficulty its predecessor had. The premise of the game remains, though the story and the world have no tie in with Demon's Souls. Instead of being broken up into different areas -- which required zoning and a nice, long load time -- the world will be one, big, open playground of the dead.

Character creation is intact, however choosing a job when creating your character doesn't make the jump. No big loss there, the job system didn't seem to make much sense to me anyway. As with most sequels, the selection of weapons, armor, and magic skills will be expanded. I expect all good treasure to be almost impossible to acquire, in classic Demon's Souls fashion.

The online aspect of Demon's Souls will carry over, though in what capacity has yet to be finalized. You will still be able to leave notes to warn future adventurers of forthcoming dangers. However no mention was made of player summoning or PvP world invasion. Also it seems like the world tendency changes have been scrapped.

Dark Souls is slated to release later this year, as a PS3 exclusive in Japan, and for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in the west. 360 owners can thank Namco Bandai for finally being able to get in on the anger-inducing fun.

via Siliconera