With a little help from Hidetaka Miyazaki himself, we give you the lowdown on From Software’s promising bleakquel
1 IT’LL BE ‘POSSIBLE’
Director Hidetaka Miyazaki describing that finishing Dark Souls III to us as being “possible to accomplish” has to be our favourite quote about the game. “The key concept of this series is ‘feeling accomplishment through overcoming difficulty’, so there’s no option to simply lower the difficulty. I want to keep both the possibility of accomplishment and the difficulty itself.”
2 FROM SOFTWARE KNOWS PS4
Working with new hardware can always be a potential stumbling block for studios. Thankfully that wasn’t the case with Bloodborne, but when we spoke with Miyazaki about Dark Souls III, he told us that From Software learnt a lot developing a game for PS4 and that the team is using that experience for Dark Souls III’s development. Indeed, it already looks far more polished and technically accomplished than the last two Dark Souls games – that’s one good reason for leaving last gen behind right there.
3 BLOODBORNE IS AN INFLUENCE
Learning how to get the best out of the PS4 isn’t the only impact that Bloodborne has had on Dark Souls III. You can clearly see some influence from that game in how the new Dark Souls plays as well. That’s most evident in its faster pace. While not being as frenetic or as aggressive as Bloodborne can be, it is noticeably faster than the previous Dark Souls titles and many enemies are more tenacious to boot.
4 BATTLE ARTS ARE VITAL
One of Dark Souls III ’s key new mechanics is the ability to perform Battle Arts. These are essentially special moves, activated by pressing L2 while two-handing weapons, that vary depending on which weapon you are using. When dual-wielding Scimitars, for example, you can perform a spinning attack that’s incredibly useful when you’re surrounded by enemies. With a Greatsword, you perform a lunge attack that can be chained into a huge upward strike that can send enemies flying into the air.
5 STANCES ARE A THING
Not all Battle Arts take the form of a move. Instead, some weapons have Battle Arts that put you into a stance, which then opens up the possibility for new attacks. Take the Longsword – the Battle Art for this weapon puts you into Ready Stance. From this poised position, R1 and R2 will perform new attacks, and thesee are more powerful that your average attacks and can be used to break through an opponent’s guard.
6 YOU WILL FIGHT LORDS OF CINDER
Throughout the course of Dark Souls III, you will be fighting bosses that are Lords Of Cinder – ‘people’ who have sacrificed themselves to rekindle the first flame, like Gwyn from the first Dark Souls. When you kill one of those bosses, you get the message ‘Heir Of Fire Destroyed’, which has some interesting implications for the story. This could mean that you are taking out those who might be trying to rekindle the flame yet again, perhaps finally ending the cycle of light and decay and giving us closure for this chapter.
7 IT’S LOCKED AT 30FPS
There’s a certain sub-section of the gaming community that throws a tantrum when a game is anything less than 60fps. We’re not part of that group. Sure, it’s nice to have 60fps, but when you’ve got a game like Dark Souls that’s had a lot of problems when it comes to frame-rate inconsistencies in the past, we’ll happily take a locked, solid, 30fps, which is what From Software has said it is going to achieve on PS4.
8 THE A TEAM IS BACK
While Dark Souls II is a great game, it’s no secret that many thought it fell a bit short of the quality of the first Dark Souls. That was perhaps somewhat inevitable, given that the ‘A-Team’ that made the first Dark Souls moved onto crafting Bloodborne after making the first Dark Souls game, leaving Dark Souls II in another team’s hands. Now Bloodborne is finished, Miyazaki is back at the helm for Dark Souls III along with From Software’s best people, doing what they can to make this the best Souls game in the series.
9 MANAGE YOUR MANA
Along with Health and Stamina, Dark Souls III has a new bar for you to manage. The ‘Mana bar’ (as we’re calling it), is consumed whenever you use spells, making it particularly important if you favour a magic-based build. Don’t assume it’s irrelevant if you’re a melee-focused character, however: the aforementioned Battle Arts also consume the Mana gauge, making it important for all character builds.
10 YOU’VE GOT A NEW FLASK
Along with the introduction of a Mana bar, Dark Souls III introduces a new Estus Flask that you use to replenish your Mana. The Ash Estus Flask appears to operate in an identical way to your normal Estus Flask in that it refills at bonfires between uses. Like the normal Estus Flask, you will also be able to upgrade it so that you get more uses out of it between refills. This also hints that we will be expected to use abilities more than we’re perhaps used to…
11 COVENANTS WILL CHANGE
Covenants will return in Dark Souls III and Miyazaki has indicated that they will be simplified in Dark Souls III. That’s a good thing, because the fact that many people didn’t understand them in previous games meant that they just ended up ignoring them. “It will be a chance to explore new situations in the simple multiplayer of co-op and invasion,” Miyazaki tells us, but he says that, beyond that, he can’t go into any more detail.
12 FAST TRAVEL FROM THE GET-GO
While Dark Souls II may not be regarded as quite on the same level as the first game, that doesn’t mean Dark Souls III won’t carry over anything from that game. A prime example of that is fast travel. In the first Dark Souls, you didn’t unlock the ability to fast travel until halfway through the game. DSIII, however, will allow you to fast travel between bonfires from the start.
13 YOU WON’T HOLLOW
Reflecting the interesting story beats that we talked about relating to the Lords Of Cinder and supporting the theory that we’re seeing the cycle of light and dark coming to an end is that fact that your character is no longer hollow. There is an equivalent gameplay system where you consume Embers to gain the power of a Lord Of Cinder, raising your health and opening up the ability to summon other players, just like consuming Humanity.
14 INVADE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT
The Dark Souls games have previously limited the amount of times that you can invade other players games by giving you consumable items that you have to use to invade (unless you jumped through a load of hoops to get the Red Eye Orb in the first Dark Souls). Dark Souls III is changing that by giving you an unlimiteduse invasion item. Given that the PvP aspect of Dark Souls is a massive part of the game for a lot of players, we think that’s a positive change.
15 SACRIFICE YOURSELF
There are rumours floating around that you’ll be able to create your own bonfires in Dark Souls III by sacrificing yourself. We wonder whether that could make the game too easy, but perhaps it will be punished so harshly that you will use it very sparingly. Perhaps you could lose a level and lower your stats when you sacrifice yourself, for example? Or, maybe it will turn out to be nothing more than a rumour. We’ll find out soon…
16 PVP IS BETTER BALANCED
What we’ve seen of Dark Souls III so far indicates that PvP will be more balanced. It’s more difficult to exploit backstabs than it has been in the past, given that they can be missed if you’re not positioned well, leaving you open for a counter while you’re locked in an animation. Strength weapons are more viable as well now that you can pivot slightly while in the middle of an attack.
17 AMBUSHES ARE COMING
Something that’s evident from what we’ve played of Dark Souls III so far is that this is a game that loves its ambushes. We’ve been taken by surprise in Souls games plenty of times in the past, of course, but ambushes seem far more common in the Dark Souls III gameplay that From Software has been showing off. This may be changed by the time the final game comes out, but we know that we’ll be carefully checking our corners on the assumption that it won’t!
18 MANAGE YOUR MOBS
Another similarity that we’ve noticed between Bloodborne and Dark Souls III is the need to manage mobs. Getting yourself surrounded by enemies is a sure-fire way to get skewered, chopped, burnt and maimed by the terrifying creatures that roam Dark Souls III ’s decaying world. That means that drawing enemies out to tackle them on your own terms, rather than wading into the mob like a maniac, is going to be an incredibly important tactic to master.
19 BOSSES WILL CHANGE
You know that thing when you’re fighting a boss in a Souls game and you think that it’s going pretty well, and actually you’re quite good at this game, and then the boss gets down to half health, transforms, and cuts your ego in half as quickly as it does your character’s face? That’s probably going to happen a lot. We’ve already seen it with the Dancer Of The Frigid Valley, who grabs an extra sword halfway through the battle to unleash some terrifying attacks. Miyazaki has indicated that these mutations are something the team is putting a lot of focus on, so steel your nerves…
20 IT’S GOT SERVERS
Dark Souls III will have its own dedicated servers, which can only be a good thing for online play. Indeed, servers seemed to work well during Dark Souls III ’s network tests, so hopefully that will carry over when the game releases. During that test, you could only be invaded if you had summoned a phantom for help, but we reckon that will change for the main game.
21 BLOODBORNE IS DONE
If you’re hoping for more of what Bloodborne’s got to offer, then we’re afraid that Dark Souls III is your only option. Now that The Old Hunters has been released, that means that Bloodborne is officially done. It’s either a case of moving on to Dark Souls III or waiting in the hope that Bloodborne 2 will eventually be announced!
22 MIYAZAKI IS PUMPED
Miyazaki says that with the break he’s had away from Dark Souls while making Bloodborne, he was looking forward to returning to Souls. “It has been a long time so I do feel refreshed,” he told us. “Sinking into the battle of the hunter and the horror world was not only an exciting experience, but it also allowed me to re-acknowledge the charm of a fantasy world and the intrigue of Dark Souls.”
23 YOU CAN PRESTIGE
When we say you can prestige, we don’t mean that Dark Souls III is going all COD. What we are talking about is the game’s Prestige Edition. This comes with an art book, a map, the soundtrack, and a 40cm Lord Of Cinder figurine, amongst other bits. If you’re an obsessive fan with a bit of cash to spare, we’re sure you’ll love all that Dark Souls-themed loot.
24 IS THIS THE END?
When Miyazaki started talking about Dark Souls III as the ‘end’ of Dark Souls, it sounded like this would be the last game in the series. Since clarifying those statements, though, it seems more like he is suggesting that we’re going to see a event that represents a conclusion. DSIII looks to end the cycle of light and dark, so maybe we’ll see something different in the Souls universe in the future…
25 WE KNOW THE RELEASE DATE
The date on which Dark Souls III is unleashed is not too far in the future. You’ll be able to grab the game for PlayStation 4 from 12 April. That’s unless you’re so impatient that you fancy importing the game from Japan on 24 March and trying to deal with Dark Souls III in a foreign language? As if it won’t be hard enough already…