Now that Dark Souls: Remastered has dropped, it’s really got people thinking about the Souls series again, myself included. I’ve long yearned for Demon’s Souls, the first title in the series, to get a shiny, new coat ever since the PlayStation 4 was announced. Originally, I thought it would be a good idea to have Demon’s Souls come out on the PS4 before Dark Souls; however, now that interest in the series has been rekindled, it’s the perfect time for the lesser-known title to rear its head. Before we get into that, let’s look at a little bit of the history behind Demon’s Souls and how it came to be.
Originally, Demon’s Souls started out as a successor to King’s Field; however, the project was failing, and ideas began to stagnate. Then Hidetaka Miyazaki came to direct the project, having previously worked on the Armored Core series. Miyazaki wanted the project to have the feel of older games and force players to figure out information for themselves rather than just being able to look it up.
The game wasn’t necessarily intended to be difficult but did turn out that way due to its own design philosophy. Preferring visual storytelling, FromSoftware made every environment detailed and told most of the story through locations and item descriptions rather than huge amounts of exposition. The game only released in Asia at first, in February 2009, with the idea that a Western release was too risky, as the game was so different from popular games at the time. After this, it gained traction on the internet and was published in North America by Atlus USA in October 2009 and eventually by Bandai Namco in June 2010.
Now let’s discuss what would be some nice additions to Demon’s Souls should it be remastered for PlayStation 4. The reason it is very unlikely to come out on any other platform is because Sony holds the rights to the game and very rarely sells their assets. Whilst it’s a sad reality that we probably won’t see the gothic fantasy title release on any other platforms, we may get the game on PS4 as it would mean every Souls title would be available on the console.
Demon’s Souls came out in 2009, meaning the graphics and visuals are pretty dated. The art design and world still look stunning to this day, but they would look even better with a complete graphics overhaul. Dark Souls Remastered got the 60fps-and-higher resolution treatment but would have looked even better with the addition of dynamic lighting and cloth physics, as well as all the other things that would come with a complete reworking of the game’s graphics.
If whoever remastered the game chose to do this, it would be great accompanied by an updated character creator. Later games in the series have a detailed character creator that could easily be implemented into Demon’s Souls. With new graphics, it would be a shame not to be able to show off a character with giant green lips and an electric blue ponytail.
Lastly, it would be great to play on dedicated servers with a password system. They could even make the password system more immersive by adding it as an in-game item, like the King Rings in Dark Souls II. With the servers having been shut down for the game on PS3 earlier this year, it would be awesome to be able to play it with people once again.
So, what do you think? I think this is the perfect time for the earliest game in the franchise to be re-explored. With new people being brought to Dark Souls: Remastered, I’m sure some of them are itching to play Demon’s Souls now more than ever.
