Dark Souls 2 'more approachable' - Series creator steps aside

CVG: Pair of newcomers to helm Namco sequel as Miyazaki takes supervisor role

[NYC_Gamer]

I'm scared that DS2 will be made to please casual fans

[Conan-O-Brady]

DS1 was already casualized so it's very likely that DS2 will be even more-so....I along with many others want a true sequel to Demon's Souls, but that's probably never gonna happen now.........Umbasa

[Awesome_Gamer]

I don't really think Dark Souls was casualized that much, but I do have some concers this one will be, but just to bring some hope for people, Miyazaki has taken the supervisor role and if "supervises" like Kojima with the MGS series than we have nothong to worry about, I didn't click disagree btw.

[ChronoJoe]

Bonfires aside I don't really see how it was 'casualised'. Enemy variety / attack patterns were much more complex in Dark Souls.

The main distinction that made it a better game (Dark Souls) was the Estus Flask system. In Demon's Souls you can farm herbs and become borderline unkillable as a result.

[Vanfernal]

@ChronoJoe

Dark Souls was actually patched and the difficulty toned down notably from the Vanilla version of Dark Souls, so yeah it was casualized to some point and the creators themselves said that they were worried the difficulty of the game wouldn't appeal to everyone. I love Dark Souls and I love Demon's Souls even more, so I hope this sequel would will be everything we've come to expect. Altough I wouldn't be surprised if they add and easy mode. There's a couple of articles around about the developers talking about this.

[MikeMyers]

There's nothing wrong with trying to appeal to more fans but they need to do it in a way that still retains what people loved about the previous games. They can add an easier mode or add checkpoints but they need to distinguish who played the game that way with trophies and achievements.

I'm all for giving the gamer choices. What I am not for is adopting a more casual appeal to make it more mainstream for everyone.

[Deputydon]

Well, to me it sounds like they want to just make it easier for players to understand HOW to play, not so much make it easier to play. Like all of the people that complained the game was too difficult because they didn't know how to do something simple. A lot of people don't even understand that the weapons scale with specific stats, so they just pump everything into strength then use a lightning weapon, which doesn't scale. In that sense, I suppose I would be okay with "more accessible" but making the game play itself easier would be a huge disappointment.

Especially considering I didn't think Dark Souls was THAT difficult.

[Neckbear]

Dark Souls was actually harder than Demon's, though.

@Vanfernal:

The patches barely touched the game's difficulty, they mostly balanced spells and skills (usually nerfed overpowered crap) to give a better PvP experience.

[ABizzel1]

Just stopped in to say "More Approachable" doesn't always mean "More Casual".

[ziggurcat]

@ Vanfernal:

i believe that was the PC version because PC owners were the only ones crying over the difficulty of the game, and xbox owners who hadn't played demons souls didn't even complain!

dark souls was hard, but i think the difficulty was relative in that those who had played demons souls didn't have as difficult of a time getting through the game.

should dark souls II's difficulty be dumbed down because of people who cried about how hard darks souls was, i may hesitate to buy.

[Mounce]

DS1 was DEFINITELY NOT....Casualized....

Demon's Souls had a 'touche' to classic games like.....Ghosts and Goblins? (lol) but....neither of them were casualized.... That's just stupid.

But I too will fear that this is going to be casualized.

[JoySticksFTW]

Dark Souls was definitely patched to be more accessible.

While they did nerf brokenly overpowered spells and weapons (Iron Skin, Crystal Ring Shield, Strong Magic Shield), the patch also

-dialed down enemy health and poise,
-changed dangerous enemy placement in levels,
-shortened aggro range,
-awarded a bunch more souls per kill,
-added item drops and increased item drop rate dramatically,
-Twinkling Titanite on sale now
-And the big one, made Curse a non-issue. It no longer stacks.

The only thing truly worrisome about Dark Souls were those basilisk curse frogs. Even though you could wear curse-resistant armor, get the cursebite ring, and learned not to stand still in their clouds, you still worried a bit when playing in the basilisk tree or sewer locations.

Now that the Curse effect never takes you lower than 50 percent of your health, it's a breeze for old Demon's Souls soul form players, which many intentionally played in (Nexus suicides! :D) to avoid invasions but still get / offer online messages or to stabilize their world tendency.

I think Dark Souls has a good example of making the Souls games more accessible, without dumbing down difficulty with how it now deals with npc hostility.

In Demon's Souls, you can be in the talk menu with an npc - and with the slip of a finger, accidentally attack and permanently turn a NPC hostile for the rest of the playthrough. Sucksss!

In Dark Souls, you can absolve sins and have a chance at resetting the various NPC's you've angered. It's a huge upgrade in my opinion! It's more accessible, but does not negatively affect playability.

Though I still trained my myself to initiate the conversation, and then turn away from the npc just in case I fire off a stupid attack.

More accessible doesn't automatically mean more easy, though it often does. Please keep the challenge, but continue to eliminate ways a gamer can totally screw their playthrough (i.e. accidental permanent npc hostility)

[SilentNegotiator]

"DS1 was already casualized"

........how? I thought it was a lot more difficult than Demon's Souls.

@JoysticksFTW
Good on the Curse change. Stacking curses was bulls**t. Half health in itself is HARDLY "not an issue". It wasn't a problem in Demon's Souls ONLY - and I mean ONLY - because you were half-health almost constantly. The full health was practically a reward....the half health didn't feel like so much a punishment.

[JoySticksFTW]

@ Silent

I think you've made my point.

In Demon's Souls you are constantly at half health for near the whole game.

Should anyone used to that fear curse at all?

Especially with it already limited to a couple of rare instances. And now only limited to half health?

In Demon's Souls you had to either use rare stones to revive or beat a boss.

The Dark Souls patch not only limited the curse effect to half, but also added purging stones to another merchant's sell list. Plus with the improved item drop rates and the covetous serpent ring the stones can be farmed making curse a bigger non-issue.

If you're getting cursed or once you are out of the curse area, simply pop a stone and be cured.

How's that scary now?

For a lot of gamers, one or two curses were enough to learn to put on some curse resist armor, maybe detour to New Londo with transient curses to get that cursebite ring, and above all learn to move out of the fog.

Part of the fun of these games is learning from past mistakes.

[Stewie2k8]

Dark Souls wasn't "casualized"....

[dedicatedtogamers]

I liked Dark Souls just as much as Demon's Souls, but the difficulty was definitely taken a notch down. I hope they don't get too casualized.

Then again, "more approachable" might simply mean that some inscrutable aspects of the game are explained better, or that the combat is given more polish (which would be nice, especially for online play).

[icewater85]

I don't think the difficultly was taken down. Since you played Demon Souls you had a very good idea of how to play Dark Souls. I think the difficulty was about the same as Demon Souls, but again since a lot of people already played that they knew how to play Dark Souls.

[soundslike]

All they have to do to make the game more approachable is make it easier to join up in co-op, and not just for boss battles.

Then just make a covenant with a sweet weapon for the solo hardcore players to fawn over to give them reason not to do co-op all the time.

[TUGA]

@ icewater85 That poisonous swamp area from Demon's Souls was more difficult to me than anything on Dark Souls so i have to disagree with you there. Demon's Souls is definitely more difficult than Dark Souls.

[GrumpyOla]

The 4 Kings was the toughest thing in both games to me and much worst on NG+. The witch that was supposed to aid you was completely useless.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

It's becuz of dem casuaul pc gamers.. /s

This game barely sold about 700,000 on each console. The hardcore gamers are a very small crowd on console.

[SageHonor]

Aren't we all?

[Vanfernal]

Dark Souls was definitely patched to be more accessible. ESPECIALLY when it came to the curses. Now you can buy curse removal stones from that creepy skeleton lady on the sewer next to the Undead Burg. Originally you had to buy them from the pardoner next to the church bell (he only sold 2) or make it all the way to the smack middle of New Londo to remove it. Also item drops in general where increased and humanity and homeward bone drops were more abundant.

Also things like joining the Sunlight Covenant became easier (now you need 25 faith in order to join instead of 50). Plus equipment weight was readjusted. I could NEVER put on Havel's or the Stone armor without equipping Havel's ring before, now I barely ever use it.

Also, originally a boss would only give you a fraction of the souls if you summoned ghosts to help you with the battle.

Come on people, Dark Souls is still hard and everything, but it's not as brutal as it was in the first version. Denying that they decided to make it more accessible is just silly.

[wishingW3L]

I find funny that on another article there was some guy stating this and he got bubbled down and inundated with disagrees, and now this article comes out.... lol

People in N4G should take it easy with the bubbles because they are hard to gain them back but way too easy to lost them.

[DOMination-]

The guy on the other article lost bubbles because he made it a consoles thing. Saying Demons Souls was better because it was ps3 exclusive.

[Conan-O-Brady]

More approachable?....Even more casualised than the last.

[cleft5]

So the game will now be easy, fucking great. Well there goes that game right down the fucking drain with the rest of the shit games that use to be good. Still, I will at least rent it.

[grifter024]

How is free roam..go wherever you want create your own adventure a bad thing? Why do we need them to linear this game? Did I get frustrated because I didn't know what to do? Yes. Did I still have fun swathing my own path in the game? Heck yeah!

More than likely they are going to make you go in order between realms and not let you choose which place you go to anymore.

[majiebeast]

I guess now all we can do is hope for Demons souls 2 now. Dark souls already wasnt nearly as hard as Demons souls, so we can expect dark souls 2 to be even easier.

So sick of all the hand holding in games now a days. There should be a mode called holding hands and there should be a arrow that leads the way and above it, it should say here is where you need to go dumbass.

[ceballos77mx]

More aprochable=easier.

[Ryo-Hazuki]

Here we go again. Developers still haven't realized that when you dumb down a game that already has it's fans and forget their roots all it will do is piss off your fanbase. It does not equal more sales. From Software is getting greedy because they finally struck gold on a series and now they want Elder Scrolls sales. Please don't be another Ninja Gaiden because all that did was hurt the series and in the end lose fans....and sales for that matter.

[TemplarDante]

I am an anti-casual gamer.
They have Angry Birds, donj try to ruin DS2 for them!!!

[shammgod]

This can be bad news.

[Aaroncls7]

Yo fellas, no need to freak out. These guys are clearly working on making their franchise more accessible for players, and they deserve it.

From brought us a very unique universe with their games, and it was clear that the amount of work and effort placed into their previous games was massive, they deserve a bit more commercial success.

There are some really dark areas in those games, like understanding the crafting system and the innerworkings of the game itself, like Demon's Souls world tendencies, etc.

I mean, come on, most players had to turn to online guides to understand a lot of shit, lets be honest and admit some things could be better.

[NYC_Gamer]

So you think it's good for studios to go the casual route?It's sad because many franchises have been ruined just for the sake of more players and profit.

[Aaroncls7]

Thats not what they meant, or what i meant. Try to think like an adult.

[RuperttheBear]

The word 'casual' gets thrown around so much on here that it barely has any meaning.

[thaimasker]

Lol dark souls was easy and held your hand? this website has some of the strangest hipsters.

[greatcrusader44]

Both souls games were made for the casuals. Kings Field games were the most hardcore. Creators sold out for the wii sports audience

*adorns hipster glasses

[X-Alchemist]

having a straightforward story isn't a bad thing at all, if you're playing dark souls without a guide or with a help of a friend you'll most likely be really confused or miss out a bunch of important stuff.

They said challenging gameplay will still be apparent, so if everything else is a little bit more straightforward other than that, I actually don't see a problem at all.

[GrumpyOla]

Confusion is part of the appeal for these games. Not knowing what lies behind the corner or if that person is a friend or foe or what to do with a silly doll you find and once you approach a painting miles away that doll opens up a whole new world in front of you, sleeping in a giant crows nest transports you to a previous area, all that what made DS a great game to me.

[XXXL]

Guys....... They made resident evil series more approachable and look how that turned out.

[Conan-O-Brady]

Exactly.....Have a bubble

[Cam977]

Cool but I have one problem, I hope they don't go down the cheap route again. After completing DeS, I immediately went to DaS and some parts were cheap and partially ruined the experience.

[Son_Lee]

More approachable = streamlined, NOT dumbed down. I wish people would know the difference between the two.

[jay2]

:( noooooooo!.

[DivineAssault]

There will prolly be an easy mode or something but damn thats not right.. This series is EVIL & it needs to stay that way.. Finished demon souls & 1/2 way thru dark souls so i will buy this no matter what.. Just sucks having the temptation of toning down the difficulty on those really hard blood vessel bursting areas

[Plagasx]

And here...we...go...

[Playstation1984]

i hope its not going to be easy it will ruin dark souls.

[NSchneider]

I'm really not worried about the difficulty being toned down. Accessibility does not equal easier. When I first played Dark Souls I hadn't touched Demons Souls at all. My first character in Dark Souls took about 43 hours to reach level 42 and get to Sen's Fortress, and this was without doing any real optional stuff. The only thing I did optional with that character up to that point was enter the Dragon Covenant.

I'd imagine more accessible would entail that certain aspects are better explained. I'm sorry to say this but the actual mechanics could use some refinement. I like the challenge, but I also in this second playthrough have noticed that enemy behavior is highly tied to repetition. I've also still have no idea where I stand with a covenant, or anyway of knowing really, and co-op is a chore to enter with others.

More accessible with the same level of challenge won't break this series, games get easier because you learn how to play better, if you played Demon Souls than yeah Dark Souls probably seemed easier. Interface got better, issues fixed in coding, etc. I don't see an issue here, unless of course they do add an easy mode, or the ability to turn off being invaded. I sort of enjoy the second guessing of reversing my hollowed status in preparation for a PvP player to invade and kill.

[Sithlord-Gamble]

"more straightforward and more understandable" 

GOOD.
I loved both Souls games. I loved the difficulty.

I hated the open world concept. It made everything too confusing.
I prefer the central hub of Demons Souls.

I platinumed Demons Souls. I couldnt stand Dark Souls by the time I got to Anor.
I got tired of the confusion, lack of direction & lack of MP summons.

So the words Understandable & Straightforward is great news for me as long as that doesnt make it more casual.

Keep the difficulty PLEASE.Thats the whole point of Souls games.

[clarkdef]

I got to the end of Darksouls without leveling up at all, only leveling my weapons, which is all you need to do, game is very fun to play like this, but you can only really use your club lol. Upgrading to a club with nails in it was awesome haha

[squallcloud9]

I got platinum for both games but I agree that they could make it more straightforward. I did my first play through on my own but to get everything I had to go on-line more than a few times. I also agree that they should make it more accessible for new players without toning down the difficulty. From software needs to be more commercially successful, they deserve it, and it would be selfish of us to insist that the keep it strictly tailored to our tastes. Most gamers don't get to the end of a game anyway, so why not have them add to the sale of a game? And some of those new players may even turn out to be chosen ones, able to stick with it to the end and beyond. Should we deny them that chance?

[Dark_Overlord]

Dark Souls 2, damn I haven't even plat'd Demon's Souls yet (2 years of farming and no f***ing Pure Bladestone >:( ), got Dark Souls still in its packaging taunting me :D

[kesvalk]

i chuckle at the term "casualised" being thrown everywhere here...

really? you will need a LOT of work to make the souls series become casual.

it's almost as common as artificial difficulty.

[StrawberryDiesel420]

This is good news. Probably means we'll be getting a Demon's Souls 2 PS4 launch title. We all know Sony owns the IP and there's no way in hell this guy isn't working on something Souls related.