Dark Souls II Message Board older than one year ago

Namco-Bandai and FromSoft go beyond death in this new look at the much-anticipated sequel.

Marty and Keza give their take on the anticipated sequel after playing it at Namco Bandai's headquarters.

The first round of the Dark Souls 2 beta begins on October 12, followed by another round a fortnight later on October 27. The PS3 closed beta was originally billed for October 5, but hey, if there's one thing Souls players ought to be good at, it's patience.

At least they can while away a bit of the wait by signing up for the beta through PSN; as far as we can see sign-ups aren't available in North America yet, but they are in Europe, where brave adventures can register via one really simple click right over here.

Seriously, the other thing Souls players should be good at is spotting traps. Try this link instead, and be safe in the knowledge Dark Souls 2 hits PS3 and Xbox 360 in March 2014.

Happy Friday! Here's a new hype video produced by Namco Bandai to pump us all up for Dark Souls II, the sequel to the most masochistic game on the planet. Hopefully this will tide you over while waiting for the beta.Read more...

Dark Souls superfan Peter Serafinowicz narrates this mini-doc about the creation of real life Dark Souls II armour.

Namco Bandai will launch a closed PlayStation 3 beta program for Dark Souls 2 on October 5, the publisher announced. Sign-ups for the beta will start after September 5, at which point players will see a registration announcement on the game's official Facebook page.

Though the beta program is locked to PS3 owners, Dark Souls 2 will launch in March 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Our co-opinion of the game from our time with the E3 demo was positive, though we reluctantly admitted that we're gluttons for the game's unrelenting punishment.

If you're desperate for punishment this fall, you're in luck: the folks at Namco Bandai have just announced that a closed beta for Dark Souls II will launch in October for the PlayStation 3.Read more...

If you're a hardcore Dark Souls player, chances are you'll want to hear what another hardcore Dark Souls player thinks of the coming sequel.Read more...

Courtesy of a Famitsu feature and the universal translator that is Reddit, the internet is currently awash with new information about the combat systems in Dark Souls II. Apart from the addition of QTEs to simplify the dastardly boss fights, the changes are tweaks to the Souls formula rather than massive overhauls. The cover system could be awkward but the inclusion of a Dutiful Commando class probably makes it necessary. Thank the gaming gods that From have finally seen the light and included a recharging health system though because, damn, if you played the previous games, you’ll surely agree that they were unnecessarily difficult.

Obviously, that’s a barrel-load of bilge. Click for knowledge and videos.

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This is Co-Opinion, where two Joystiq editors play a game and discuss their experience. This edition focused on the E3 2013 demo of Dark Souls 2, from developer From Software. Richard Mitchell: So you and I both got a chance to try out Dark Souls 2. I was prepared to die, and I did. Many times. There were a few pre-defined classes to choose from in our demo. I tried a dual swordsman first.

I played until I realized that he only had a tiny shield, which probably wasn't the best choice. I restarted and picked a much beefier knight with a hefty shield and sword, and a massive two-handed sword to boot.

What did you roll with? Xav de Matos: I rolled warrior from the start. There's no way I'm rocking through the unknown depths of From Software's evil mind without a shield at the ready.

Even though I wanted to get right into the action, I had to stop and take a look around because Dark Souls 2 looks gorgeous. From Software's new engine really gets lighting and shadows right. Even the bright outdoors pop. Then there's the little stuff, like watching the grass sway from side to side in the wind. It's all really detailed and beautiful. Sadly, no one should ever stop to smell the roses, or they'll need to be plucked and put on your grave.

“I played Dark Souls II,” I said to a friend of mine one night at E3 over drinks. He leaned in. His eyes suddenly got wide and he got a little quiet. “How was it?” He asked. “It was Dark Souls.” I said. Immediately a wave of relief rushed over his face, and my friend said to himself, “Oh thank god.” He’s a Dark Souls fan, you see. I’m a Dark Souls fan. Later, another friend of joined us. “He played Dark Souls II — tell him what you told me.” I did, and the exact same conversation repeated itself, with the same cathartic wave of relief that Dark Souls II was a Dark Souls game, thank god. People that like Dark Souls are weird like that. It's a kind of unspoken Stockholm syndrome, one borne out of immense, self-inflicted abuse over many, many hours. If you’ve beaten Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls you know in your gut the vast gulf of difference between the statements, “This is trying to be like Dark Souls,” “This is like Dark Souls,” and “This is Dark Souls.” They are fundamentally different statements. I played Dark Souls II in a Namco Bandai press-only meeting room with a handful of other people. It was a small demo — an E3 build that included two portions of the game (the castle interior shown off in the IGN gameplay reveal and the Mirror Knight boss shown in the E3 trailer). Yes, some of the mechanics of the game have changed — dual-wielding is a priority, multiplayer supports up to four people and class customization has been revamped. But to me, what I got out of this tiny, back room demo wasn’t the sense of what changed or had been added, but rather the sense of what was familiar. Statues come alive to ruthlessly murder you, exactly like you expect them to. Corridors are cramped and claustrophobic, just like they should be. The Mirror Knight boss battle was a monstrous fusion of the Iron Golem and the Old Monk — A lumbering gargantuan whose shield reflects magic and summons a player to come to his aid (for the sake of the demo, the enemy was AI-controlled). The game is ruthless and everything felt like it was in the right place. Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls were ultimately games about movement — brutally unforgiving meditations on anticipating how objects and characters interacted with one another. Yes they were hard, but that difficulty was tempered by a kind of cryptic fairness and reliability. When you lost, you were not disappointed with the game, you were disappointed with yourself because you should have known by then to block, dodge or parry. When you died, it was on your own terms, and that’s such a rare sensation in this medium. Without that feeling of reliable movement, Dark Souls simply is not Dark Souls. Whether or not Dark Souls II lives up to its predecessors obviously has yet to be decided. I cannot say that From Software won’t piss the entire franchise down their leg or that the game won’t be horribly uneven and broken. That’s simply not something you can glean from an awkward demo booked when you’re trying to bust your ass at E3. But what I can say and what I think is ultimately the most important statement, is this: This is Dark Souls. This is Dark Souls. Thank God, this is Dark Souls.

The sequel makes its way to the IGN booth at E3!

IGN editors give their take on the E3 gameplay trailer for Dark Souls 2.

There are lots of loud videos of computer games being shown in a large room in LA. You may be watching live streams of the bizarre occurrence online but if you have other things to do, such as actually playing games or sitting in the sun and drinking lemonade, then fear not, because all of the ones relevant to our non-console interests will find their way here eventually. Take Dark Souls 2 – the next entry in the superb action-RPG series is coming to PC and we won’t even have to organise a petition to make it happen. With that in mind, I spent the last couple of hours paddling to America and have retrieved the new trailer below. It has terrible music.

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Get ready to 'Go Beyond Death' in From Software's Dark Souls II.

At today's E3 media briefing, Microsoft has shared with us yet another look at From Software's upcoming (and, presumably, incredibly difficult) hack-n'-slash RPG, Dark Souls II. The game is coming out early next year, in March, 2014. You can take a look at its recently published fact sheet here.

After being crushed, swiped, slashed, mauled, and eaten so very many times, we know better than to trust a Souls game, even if it has an enormous banner at the LA Convention Center. Happily, a Namco Bandai representative's confirmed to us Dark Souls 2 is indeed due in March 2014.

An enormous sign on the LA Convention Center, where E3 will be held starting June 11, pairs Dark Souls 2 with a March 2014 release window. Two separate photos of the sign were posted to the web by All Games Beta and Twitter user VaatiVidya.

While it seems the writing is on the wall, we've contacted Namco Bandai to confirm the game's March 2014 release window.

A word of warning: I have never played Dark Souls, and this information is coming from French website GameKult’s interview with a Yui Tanimura, the Japanese game director of Dark Souls II. I am merely an information conduit. A nexus from them to you, with news that the complaints of the horrible, nasty port job of the previous game was noticed and taken into account. Dark Souls II is being developed as a PC game. Hooray!(more…)

The box art for Dark Souls 2 recently popped up on the web, and features a dude with a sword walking away from the box-holder. For all we know, the man may be walking backwards while holding the sword, as animated .gif pack shots have yet to be realized.

We've placed hi-res versions of the box art, courtesy of All Games Beta, in a gallery for your viewing pleasure below. Dark Souls 2 is coming to Xbox 360, PC and PS3.

Dark Souls 2 director Yui Tanimura has admitted that From Software botched the job porting Dark Souls to the PC. "A lot of it was not very well done, sort of half-assed," Tanimura told Shacknews through his translator, Tak Miyazoe.

"Yes, we will definitely put more priority on the PC," Tanimura said regarding the upcoming sequel. "Last time, we started working on PC after the console version was complete. This time, because we are considering the PC from the beginning, you can be sure there will be more care put into PC development."

The PC port of Dark Souls was the result of an impassioned internet petition that caught the attention of Namco Bandai. The first two games in the series, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, were both directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. Namco Bandai announced Miyazaki would not direct Dark Souls 2, a "company decision" in favor of dual directors Yui Tanimura and Tomohiro Shibuya.

All Games Beta has posted leaked screenshots and a trailer it says are from Dark Souls 2. See 12 minutes of gameplay right here.

Foreboding, firelit stone castle environments full of deadly knights and nearby monsters. Death in the middle of a developer-driven demo. It's Dark Souls 2, and director Yui Tanimura picks up a torch and guides you through it in 12 minutes of new footage.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki is upset about leaving the series, he tells Edge. Dark Souls 2 has been passed to a new pair of directors, Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, a move that was "a company decision" according to Namco Bandai producer Takeshi Miyazoe, and was essentially done to inject the series with some fresh blood (large stains of it, no doubt).

Despite his feelings for the Souls series, Miyazaki admits, "Sometimes I'd like to work on a warmer game - not necessarily casual, but warmer in terms of the atmosphere and the environment." Given how pervasively gloomy the series is, we can understand how being mired in it every day might be draining. Furthermore, while Miyazaki is "sad about not being involved" with Dark Souls 2, he says, "Maybe this is the time to have new inspiration, so I'm fine about that." For his part, he says that he is eager to play Dark Souls 2 "with a little bit of distance." The development team, fans and the press all understand "what the core of Dark Souls is," he says, and that core "will never change." Finally, while he'd rather not see "Dark Souls 8," he adds that the important thing is serving the series' fans. "We want to stay true to what they expect."

Fans of From Software's Demon's Souls and Dark Souls games sure like a challenge. While Dark Souls 2 will be "more understandable," we're expecting that it will retain the difficulty curve set by the previous games.

Since we really don't know what to make of the recent pieces of concept art for Dark Souls 2 seen in the gallery below, we figure it's just another way the series is beating our brains up.

#darksouls Details of the surprise Dark Souls II announcement have so far been scarce. We know that it's going to be released on the current generation of consoles, and that its dark, epic fantasy tone will match that of previous Souls games. I've been salivating for more, and thankfully further details surfaced in a new interview with 4gamer today. More »

The potentially Next-Gen game is currently 25% complete and we might not see it before 2014.

This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. It was only four years ago that From Software's "Souls" series couldn't even find a publisher in the US. It was roundly dismissed by Sony Computer Entertainment America for being too difficult, seemingly dooming it to the status of import gem and not much more. Then Atlus got it at a pittance, saw it sell dozens of times more units than they could have ever expected, and the hounds descended upon what was suddenly a profitable property.

It was a cult hit. It had currency among the so-called hardcore gamer. Other publishers simply had to have it. In the end, it was Namco Bandai that came away with the right to publish more From Software titles in the series across multiple platforms, thanks to the minor name change from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls.

Fast-forward to 2012, and Dark Souls 2 has enough cachet to warrant a debut trailer at the Spike Video Game Awards. Namco Bandai is cashing in on the success of Dark Souls and fans have a bona fide franchise on their hands.

#darksouls In an interview in the December issue of Edge Magazine, one of the new directors for Dark Souls II says that the sequel will be more "understandable." In Edge's comments section, initial reaction to that word has not been kind. More »