14 DAY TRIAL // Dark Souls 2, the upcoming medieval fantasy role-playing game from Bandai Namco and From Software, will be more approachable for new players through quite a few different things, including a reworked animation system as well as an ambiguous story.
Dark Souls and its spiritual predecessor, Demon's Souls, attracted a cult-like following largely because they were extremely challenging and tough, requiring nothing short of perfection.
For the second part of the Dark Souls experience, developer From Software has already emphasized some time ago that it wants to make the game more accessible but not in a way that would affect its challenging nature.
Instead, producer Takeshi Miyazoe has told OXM that the team is making the game simpler to understand through different clever ways.
One such method is the reworked animation system that should provide players with better hints and cues concerning upcoming enemy attacks.
"It's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes, like the motion capture," Miyazoe said. "In the previous game, the player motions were hand-animated, whereas this time they're motion-captured by stunt artists."
What's more, for the special Player vs. Player invasions that can happen when you are connected to the Internet, From Software has eliminated the rather cheap of method of escaping them by going Hollow, as it now comes with a reduction to the maximum health.
Instead, players will be able to summon help from the Covenants that are included in the story campaign. For example, members of the Way of Blue faction will be able to summon Blue Sentinels to fight against the invading player.
The story in Dark Souls 2 was also deliberately kept ambiguous, as the studio wants to let the imagination of players fill in the gaps.
"We feel that having enough space for people to be creative is as approachable as you can get," Miyazoe added. "The 'true story' isn't as important to us as the story each player creates based on his or her own roleplay. We want you to explore or get items and read the descriptions to find out more, so that you are able to fill in the gaps as you explore."
Dark Souls 2 will be released next week, on March 11, in North America, and March 14, in Europe, for the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. A PC edition is also on the way but, unfortunately, the studio has yet to share anything about a planned release date.