Bigger isn’t always better. While our virtual worlds seem to be getting more expansive and detailed with every passing month, we sometimes forget that it’s the content that matters.
Furthermore, with such a large, in-depth world, we want lots of freedom, right? That was the idea behind Dark Souls II, as revealed by co-director Yui Tanimura during a recent Edge interview. After he didn’t quite rule out a next-gen port, he addressed the differences in overall game size between Dark Souls and the upcoming sequel:
We are thinking about the same size world as Dark Souls. The storytelling will be fairly similar, but in regards to proceeding through the world, we want to give more freedom for the players to choose their decisions, and so the unfolding of the world will hopefully be unique to each player.
Elsewhere in the interview, Tanimura talked about the gameplay upgrades, which include “striving and grasping onto life.” In the new effort, players will definitely want to avoid staying in Hollow form for any length of time, and that will add to the already stiff difficulty. If you’re up for a challenge, though, grab Dark Souls II on March 11, which is when it’ll launch for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. It’ll be available three days later in Japan and four days later in Europe.
More space doesn’t always equal more immersion
I know a lot of people think this, but it just isn’t true. You could have the biggest virtual world ever created but if it isn’t engaging and interesting, I really don’t care about exploring it. As for freedom, that’s a given, especially in a sandbox-type structure.
