Check out this much anticipated trailer from TGS 2013 for Dark Souls II, coming out on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC in March 2014. Namco-Bandai and FromSoft go beyond death in this new look at the much-anticipated sequel.
The fundamental Demon’s/Dark Souls beginner’s experience goes something like this: You start out, kill a few mundane monsters, die horribly at the hands of something far more powerful than yourself, and suddenly find yourself running about as a ghost. Heck, Demons Souls didn’t even waste any time with this; the first thing you do in that game is die to an obscenely high-level monster.
The developers at From Soft intended to make the Souls games a mission to regain your life, with the undead state not being a penalty, exactly, but certainly not as ideal as playing in a corporeal state. But a fair number of gamers decided they actually like exploring the world of Souls in their undead form, as it allows them certain perks not available to the living. The most significant of these is that an undead player’s world can’t be invaded by other players — which means they’re safe from game-hacking jerks, among other things.
Far be it for From Soft to offer an experience anyone might characterize as “friendly” or “easy.” They’ve seen your habits, and they scorn your decision to take advantage of this means of making their creation slightly less hostile. That’s why for Dark Souls II they’ve decided to make the undead state hugely disadvantageous. Because if you’re a big baby, they have no sympathy for you.
Un-life as the undead sucks in Dark Souls II. For starters, it makes you ugly. The longer you play in an undead state, the more your character’s appearance degenerates. Bad enough that your skin turns green and your face becomes ugly; over time, though, your hair falls out — and according to director Yui Taimura, even worse things than that can happen as well. One of those things is that, if you re-die repeatedly in an undead state, your character’s maximum health will steadily degrade. “You thought that griffin was slaughtering you quickly while you were at full health,” From is sneering. “Try it with half as many hit points, sucker.”
Dark Souls II may be a hostile, hateful game designed to crush the joy from your life, but never let it be said that it will do so unfairly. From Soft wants to create the most level playing field possible as they aspire to destroy you. They’re thoughtful like that.
