Prepare to Die Again, For a third time.....No really.

“Now Only Embers Remain.”

 

Gamers everywhere are DYING in anticipation for the next instalment in the Souls series simply titled Dark Souls 3.

For those unfamiliar with the (as fans dub it) “Souls” series, it is a collection of Action-Role playing games created and developed by the Talented team at FromSoftware.

The series is played in third person perspective with a difficult yet satisfying melee and magic real time combat system that keeps your glutes clenched one hundred percent of the time.

Travelling through desolate lands, castles, forests, mountains, swamps, and just about any other type of terrain you can think, players simply explore and play until you find the last boss.

The majority of enemies you face are disfigured undead people and creatures. Some enemies use physical attacks and others use magic. Then you also get to fight huge unique boss enemies like a Flying suit of armor, or a giant spider that shoots a laser.

Amazing enemies and character builds aside, one of the biggest draws for people to the series is the lack of “hand holding” the game provides and encourages exploration.

There are no maps, no way points and only simple cryptic instructions provided by the very few friendly NPCs you find throughout the game. This refreshing design is all thanks to current president of FromSoftware and father of the Soul’s series, Heditaka Miyazaki.

Miyazaki San, began working at FromSoftware in the heyday of the PlayStation 2. During this time, he worked as a programmer on the Armored Core series.

Just 5 years after starting at FromSoftware Miyazaki San went from programmer to Creator/Director/Producer on the first game in the Souls series “Demon’s Souls”.

Released in 2009 exclusively for the PlayStation 3, this was the game that laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most popular contemporary video game franchises.

Many of the features that appeared in Demon’s Souls would carry over into the other iterations of the series. Some of the most notable features would be:

·    Fully Customizable Character Creator
·       Melee combat that allows control of many weapons in various stances.
·       A weight system that affects the player’s movement speed both in and out of combat.
·       Magic attacks
·       The ability to summon other players into your game for co-op help.

The biggest difference between Demon’s Souls and the rest of the series however, is Demon’s Souls “Hub” world.

This is the only game in the series to feature a separate area from any field of combat with different portals used to travel to different lands where progression takes place.

Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls released to much hype in fall 2011. This follow up took everything from the original, improved it one hundredfold. Although originally only released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, the game hit such a critical mass, that it even received a PC port the following year.

One of the biggest changes made in Dark Souls from Demon’s Souls, was the removal of the Hub world, in exchange for a giant seamless open world. The most fascinating part is that many of the different gruelling paths you travel eventually lead you back to the start of the game: “The Firelink Shrine.”

More Bosses, more lore, Dark Souls got so popular it even received DLC. Once people beat that, everyone started clamoring for another entry, and boy did they get one.  

Image Credit to:

www.nredist.com

demonssouls.wikia.com