14 DAY TRIAL // Japanese developer From Software, the studio behind the upcoming Dark Souls 2, has confirmed that the new engine and technologies developed for the upcoming PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 game will be put to good use on next-gen platforms like PS4 or Xbox One.
Dark Souls 2 launches next month and, rather surprisingly, it will only appear on the PC and on old consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Developer From Software, however, has started to assure fans that it's more than ready to start creating games for the new consoles like the PS4 or Xbox One.
According to a recent interview with IGN, the Japanese studio has emphasized that Dark Souls 2's new engine was built with new platforms in mind and to make sure that it can deliver a great title on the current consoles.
"We always had in mind the next generation, such as DirectX11 and next generation hardware when creating our technology, and also challenged ourselves as programmers to simultaneously create for the new generation," one of From Software's programmers explained.
What's more the studio has also decided to create a whole new engine in order to produce better visuals than the ones seen in Dark Souls 1, which used the same engine as Demon's Souls.
"The thing we prioritized when re-creating our engine was, as a concept, taking the graphics to a more photo-realistic look, and in order to fulfill this, we had decided to discard our old engine and create a new one. Some of the things we prioritized when creating the engine was actively take in new technology such as deferred rendering and physical-based rendering to increase the flexibility of graphic creation, and really pursue the photo-realism and lighting."
Another great aspect of using the new Dark Souls 2 engine on the PS3 and Xbox 360, according to the Japanese team, is that it could start implementing all new technologies and get experience with them before making the jump to the PS4 and Xbox One.
Such technologies include Havok cloth physics or Morpheme. Working with these technologies even on the current-gen consoles means that From Software is ready to implement them when it starts working on the new devices.
Dark Souls 2 is set to launch first for PS3 and Xbox 360 on March 11, in North America, and March 14, in Europe. A PC edition is also expected to debut in the near future but, unfortunately, no exact date is known.