Sony showed off a significant remake toward the end of its PlayStation 5 event today: Demon’s Souls, the game that gave rise to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and the popular “Souls-like” style of action-role-playing games. Bluepoint Games and Sony’s Japan Studio are handling it. The presentation didn’t have a release date.
Demon’s Souls first debuted in 2009 for the PlayStation 3. It’s from From Software, and Atlus published it. And at the time, it was a revelation for many players. It took ideas from roguelike games (such as permadeath and resetting the world when you die) and action-RPGs and blended them in a manner that no studio had done before — even From Software, whose King’s Field series could be considered a “protoform” of the Souls genre (if you think Souls games aren’t player-friendly, don’t check these out).
Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida noted this one is near to his heart before we saw the gameplay, which ended with a fierce, multi-eyed dragon rising over castle walls.
The original sold over 1 million copies, and it received critical acclaim as well. Demon’s Souls was one of my favorite PS3 games, even if I found it frustrating to learn. But it’s that frustration, that urge to master the unmasterable, that’s drawn me and millions of others to Souls-like games.