Dark Souls Revealed as Follow-up to Demon's Souls

Details have emerged regarding the next game from Demon's Souls developer From Software. Originally codenamed Project Dark, the game has been officially revealed as Dark Souls in Japanese games magazine Famitsu. The magazine preview, dissected by video games blog Andriasang, suggests that Dark Souls is not a direct sequel to Demon's Souls, and there is no connection between the two in terms of setting and storyline -- although they will share a number of similar themes. The basic RPG-styled gameplay will remain intact, with the likes of character creation, leveling up, and weapons and magic all included. However, Dark Souls will be more focused on exploration, with all areas of the game connected together rather than being accessible from a central hub as with the first game. The difficulty has also been "increased greatly" over Demon's Souls which, given the unforgiving nature of the original, should make for some seriously tough action. Co-op and competitive multiplayer elements will return, although Dark Souls will not have its own servers; hence, the Soul Tendency karma system will not be implemented this time around. Dark Souls will be released in Japan later this year, although there is no word yet on when it will see a release overseas. Namco Bandai are handling the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 overseas releases. Predecessor Demon's Souls helped publisher Atlus U.S. to record profits of $5 million last year, with parent company Index Holdings apportioning a great deal of the success to the formidable role-playing game.