IGN has recently just shown a live demo for the upcoming game Dark Souls 2. Being a major fan of Dark Souls 1 and Demon’s Souls, I was very intrigued to see the direction Dark Souls 2 would take under a different director, whilst still being produced by the same developers, From Software. A link to the gameplay video and the Q&A session held afterward will be provided at the end of this article for everyone to watch and look up some of the points I’ll raise here.
For starters, lets talk about the graphics and atmosphere of the gameplay shown. The graphics do look good, however having played the upscaled version of Dark Souls 1 on the PC, I’m not sure I can tell much difference side from the small stuff like wind effects and rustling grass. The most impressive part graphically was seeing the demo section with the player trying to cross a bridge full of wyverns flying around. That looked an interesting and possibly daunting section. The atmosphere felt spot on for a Dark Souls game. A worn down castle or mansion full of monsters and with a heavy emphasis on light. Dragons and wyverns look to play an important role in the story too.
Now, on to Dark Souls 2 gameplay analysis. We see the return of bonfires early on in the demo, which is to be expected really, but the other impressive part to me was that that particular bonfire seemed to branch off into multiple paths in that level. Granted, we seemed to be looking at a demo with a character already at high levels and as such, having already opened many paths that might be locked off to first-timers to the area. Still, it keeps the open feel of Dark Souls by allowing this exploration. We also notice that there is no Estus Flask in the demo, replaced instead by a healing items. Now, having watched the Q&A session, the developers make mention that Estus Flasks will return, and that some aspects are still in development, so the HUD may just be a placeholder for now.
We are also offered glimpses of various weapons. The standard sword, an axe and what looks like a greatsword. All looked similar to their Dark Souls counterpart. The one moment in the game that intrigued me the most, and would be one of the biggest reasons for me to buy Dark Souls 2, was seeing dual-wielding actually matter. In Dark Souls 1, dual-wielding was essentially pointless(unless you were dual-wielding spears). In the demo shown for Dark Souls 2 though, we see a brief moment of dual-wielding going on and we see that there is what looks like a special animation/weapon moveset for dual-wielding. This would make dual-wielding much, much more viable. It was hard to tell how much better this was than single-handed weapons given the high-level of the character being played though. Perhaps only specific weapons can be dual-wielded too, but it is a most positive sight to see either way.
I also want to quickly touch upon the part in the demo where the player lighted a torch to see more clearly in the dark. This is a new feature that comes at the expense of your shield, so a very risky maneuver. I like the idea behind this, especially considering the light will go out if you pull out your shield, leaving you alone in the dark. It was only a simple section shown though and perhaps, like in previous games, there will be other methods of lighting an area.
During the demo, the developers made mention of enemies reacting to what was happening. We saw this in two instances, one where the player snuck up behind a heavily armored foe, who then leaped backwards to inflict damage on the player. The other moment was when the player actively angered a cyclops looking monster who was stuck behind a door and wasn’t doing anything. The cyclops then proceeded to break through the door and attack the player. To be fair, there were moments like this in Demon’s Souls where an enemy would only attack you if you attacked it first. This was few and far between though. In general, NPCs would only react if you hit them first too. So, I see this as kind of familiar in concept. It is certainly a cool feature, but I would need to play the game myself to judge that better.
From a quick glance, the game also seems more fluid. Perhaps this is again due to the high-level of the character shown in the demo but, rolling and walking seemed fluid. Attack animations seemed slow and deliberate, but that is usual in Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls. Many comments I’ve read so far have called the game easy. This seems a bit too early a judgment, given the high-level of the character on screen, coupled by the fact that this seems far from the final version. Thus, it may be a bit too early to judge the game, but my word, if it does end up like the demo showed, I’m definitely getting this day 1 of release!
Unfortunately, no release date was stated nor for which platforms (although previous trailers have shown it should be available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 at least). I’m excited, what about you?
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