Dark Souls 2 Wiki
This page contains pre-release information for Dark Souls 2, and is retained as a means for players to see what speculation surrounded pre-launch of the game.
Dark Souls 2 was first announced on the 7th December, 2012, as a cinematic trailer shown during Spike TV's Video Game Awards. The video is 1 minute and 45 seconds long, depicting an undead warrior traversing an unknown land, meeting an unknown woman, encountering masked attackers, and confronting a one-eyed dragon. Only the words "You are of the undead, forever without hope, forever without light" are spoken. An official website, , become available soon after the announcement, showing only the form of the titular character slumped below a swinging pendant.
Its release date is unknown, however its confirmed platforms are PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. This will be the first Souls game to be released on PC alongside the console platform. Director of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, will be stepping down as Director to take on a Supervising role, with Tomohiro Shibuya acquiring the role of Director. A "revamped server-based multiplayer mode" has been announced, and Famitsu has also confirmed the introduction of dedicated servers. The staff have also stressed that the game will remain true to its roots in challenging the player, whilst presenting opportunities to innovate gameplay design.
Initial Gameplay Concepts
- The game is not a direct sequel to Dark Souls.
- As the game's protagonist, the players will embark on a journey to remove from themselves the affliction of a curse.
- Bonfires and covenants return, as do gestures.
- The difficulty level will remain, with the focus staying on learning from death to overcome challenges. The variety in ways to die has been prioritized but the focus is still on fairness.
- Story will be presented in the same fashion as Demon's and Dark, unobtrusive and discoverable by players who wish to dig deeper.
- Confusion over the usage of the word "accessible" has been clarified. What From means to do is streamline the tediousness by trimming the fat. There will be less backtracking and excessive traveling. Not being able to warp until later in the first game was a specific example cited.
- While characters will not be able to be carried over from Dark Souls into the sequel, the directors mentioned some content will carry over although it is not entirely clear what or how.
- Next gen was discussed and rumored still but the director has said it will be current gen to deliver the game to fans sooner.
- A new graphics engine was created to address framerate issues and give the development team an extra tool in creating atmosphere. PC will run at 60 fps and Console versions will run at 30 fps.
- Online interaction will be server based to facilitate unique experiences. It is unclear as of yet if they will be region based or not.
- Environment traversal will encourage the player to go deeper into areas in darkness. A torch system has been implemented to provide light during these portions.
- Mist will perform the same gateway function that fog walls performed in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.
- The goal is to get the players to feel the emotional fright of areas and to also have enemies elicit emotions in the players.
- Key Mouths that trigger in game events are also a new addition.
- Gameplay vids showed player using items and firing an arrow while walking.
- Enemies were shown with the ability to backdrop and throw their weapon at players.
- The player character was able to cycle through three pieces of equipment in each hand, and his roll speed seemed to be determined by which weapons he had equipped, rather than his total equipment burden. This is a peculiar departure from the first two Souls games, wherein all equipped items counted toward your roll speed. It is also entirely possible that the roll speed of the character is based upon the over-all weight of equipment visible on the player. This would mean that if equipment is in a slot but not in the main hand it may not count towards the player's total weight.
- Healing gems that regen health slowly are a new feature and will drop from enemies. It is unclear how common they will be. From the various gameplay demos and the network test, lifegems seem to be very common drops, though it is possible that this was only to make the demos and beta easier.
- Dual wield class will have a power stance initiated instead of two handing a weapon.
- Backstabs return although the animation seems to have changed. Remains to be seen how it affects other weapons.
- Kick has been replaced with a shoulder shunt.
- From has said starting classes have changed. The game will monitor your stat allocation and suggest a class based on your trajectory.
