Game News Dark Souls II Gets Release Date, Collector's Edition, and New Info

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Dark Souls 2; From Software; Namco Bandai

Namco Bandai has announced the release date for Dark Souls II. It's March 11, 2014 for North America and March 14 for Europe. Unfortunately, however, the PC version is getting delayed, even if not by much:

The two dates reflect the launch of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, with PC release to come “shortly after the console versions.”​

Eurogamer has this quote from Yui Tanimura:

"Our goal is to release the PC version in the same window. For the PC version we're simply saying March - we're trying our best for PC and console. The reason we can't announce the specific date is we're working on more options on how to make the PC version optimal."

The first Dark Souls received a belated release on PC with the Prepare to Die edition, which ran with low resolution textures that were quickly fixed by fans. Tanimura believes that such problems won't recur with Dark Souls 2.

"With the first Dark Souls, the development team started work on the console version before the PC version, and because of that there were less options for the development team to make the PC version more optimal in terms of resolution and so on," Tanimura said. "With Dark Souls 2, the team's working on console and PC at the same time, so there shouldn't be an issue with how optimal it will be on day one."​

If that's the case, I wonder why delay the PC release, then. Afraid of dreaded PC piracy much?

Then there's also a new trailer announcing the Collector's Edition:

​

Also Forbes' Erik Kain offers a write-up about what we can currently expect from the game:

New details are emerging from the Tokyo Game Show, where the game is being shown. It’s interesting how much of Demon’s Souls appears to be making its way into the Dark Souls sequel.

For one thing, you’re never safe anymore.

Similar to Demon’s Souls, when in Hollow form players will lose some Max HP. Unlike Demon’s Souls, they’ll lose a little bit of their max life each time they die.

This can only be reversed by restoring your human form, which you do by consuming a new consumable item called a Human Effigy. Humanity has been removed from the sequel entirely.

In Hollow form, players will not only lose max HP, they will also remain vulnerable to invasion—this is in stark contrast to the original Dark Souls which allowed invasion of Human characters only.​

Apart from the above, the game also introduces a new stat, Agility. Finally, Erik links to these beta impressions by Marcus "EpicNameBro" Yamaguchi who "says the game is shaping up to be much more hard-core than either Dark Souls or Demon’s Souls."

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Intredasting, but what about the stuff quoted at the beginning of this video?

 

[crawlkill]

maybe if the multiplayer works better than "throw down a sign and stay in the same place tabbed in for half an hour hoping you maybe get five minutes of co-op or PvP."

not digging the permanent-health-loss-until-consumable-use thing, either. wouldn't that just make an already grindy game grindier?

 

[godsend1989]

Never finished DS without cheats, maybe now i can do it because i know alot more about the mechanics of the game, it doesnt really explain shit about stats and some build are just doom to fail but you realize later.

 

[Castanova]

maybe if the multiplayer works better than "throw down a sign and stay in the same place tabbed in for half an hour hoping you maybe get five minutes of co-op or PvP."

not digging the permanent-health-loss-until-consumable-use thing, either. wouldn't that just make an already grindy game grindier?

Depends how they balance it. In Dark Souls, you had so much Humanity it was almost worthless. In Demon's Souls you had to be more careful about using the stones to become human again. However, you were automatically turned into a human any time you defeated one of the level bosses so it's not like you were permanently stuck in Soul Form. Also, you did get a fair amount of stones. I only conserved them because I wanted to use them to manipulate the world tendency in order to get certain items/NPCs/etc. A new player wouldn't care about that and could afford to use stones to become human if they wanted.

 

[toro]

maybe if the multiplayer works better than "throw down a sign and stay in the same place tabbed in for half an hour hoping you maybe get five minutes of co-op or PvP."

not digging the permanent-health-loss-until-consumable-use thing, either. wouldn't that just make an already grindy game grindier?

"The game will use dedicated multiplayer servers."

Never finished DS without cheats, maybe now i can do it because i know alot more about the mechanics of the game, it doesnt really explain shit about stats and some build are just doom to fail but you realize later.

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/

http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_Wiki

maybe if the multiplayer works better than "throw down a sign and stay in the same place tabbed in for half an hour hoping you maybe get five minutes of co-op or PvP."

not digging the permanent-health-loss-until-consumable-use thing, either. wouldn't that just make an already grindy game grindier?

Depends how they balance it. In Dark Souls, you had so much Humanity it was almost worthless. In Demon's Souls you had to be more careful about using the stones to become human again. However, you were automatically turned into a human any time you defeated one of the level bosses so it's not like you were permanently stuck in Soul Form. Also, you did get a fair amount of stones. I only conserved them because I wanted to use them to manipulate the world tendency in order to get certain items/NPCs/etc. A new player wouldn't care about that and could afford to use stones to become human if they wanted.

It will be tweaked, whatever than means except that it will not remain unchanged.

 

[toro]

And why the hell didn't you post the new video:

 

[Jaedar]

Intredasting, but what about the stuff quoted at the beginning of this video?

Well, we don't know. It seems somewhat likely that they'll make it easier to begin with(ie no firelink shrine where you can immediately go off into graveyard and die. Which is a shame, but not gamebreaking) and probably make it so that even if you don't read a lot of item descriptions you might still get some of the story.[/quote]

 

[Crooked Bee]

And why the hell didn't you post the new video:

I did. I just didn't embed it.

 

[Metro]

I just couldn't get into Derp Souls 1. Combat was fun (although I'm not a huge fan of the deliberate pacing) but one day I just set it aside and never went back.

 

[St. Toxic]

Intredasting, but what about the stuff quoted at the beginning of this video?

How is this not the official trailer?

 

[DefJam101]

Looks good, although they're getting closer and closer to completely abandoning the art style of the original game (Demons' Souls, that is).

 

[toro]

I just couldn't get into Derp Souls 1. Combat was fun (although I'm not a huge fan of the deliberate pacing) but one day I just set it aside and never went back.

First appearances can be deceitful. I don't know how to explain it but I will tell you this: finishing this game will make you a better gamer.

How is this not the official trailer?

How come you are still breathing?

 

[sser]

Sequels to notoriously difficult games are always fun to predict, especially if they've changed lead designers. Sometimes you get the sequel that tries too hard to live up to its image of being difficult like DMC2 or NG2. Other times, particularly if the franchise seems like it can make a lot of bank, it'll go in the opposite direction and get dumbed way the fuck down (NG3, most recently, but a lot of games in general.)

 

[St. Toxic]

How come you are still breathing?

Go delicious tears, nourish my ego.

finishing this game will make you a better gamer.

Man, DS fans are loco.

 

[Durante]

"The game will use dedicated multiplayer servers."

I really think that's one of the most important changes, since it should have really broad repercussions. There were plenty of features in Dark Souls that just didn't work right due to P2P connectivity issues, like the entire Dragon and Gravelord covenants.

 

[Roguey]

That positive feedback loop sounds awful and that coupled with their obfuscation of mechanics means I'll never bother with this no matter how Josh-approved it is.

 

[toro]

That positive feedback loop sounds awful and that coupled with their obfuscation of mechanics means I'll never bother with this no matter how Josh-approved it is.

Le Fuck ... humanity lost another one.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

maybe if the multiplayer works better than "throw down a sign and stay in the same place tabbed in for half an hour hoping you maybe get five minutes of co-op or PvP."

not digging the permanent-health-loss-until-consumable-use thing, either. wouldn't that just make an already grindy game grindier?

Huh? It's not a grindy game ever since that one early patch which increased soul drops by a factor of ~5.

 

[Machocruz]

Sequels to notoriously difficult games are always fun to predict, especially if they've changed lead designers. Sometimes you get the sequel that tries too hard to live up to its image of being difficult like DMC2 or NG2. Other times, particularly if the franchise seems like it can make a lot of bank, it'll go in the opposite direction and get dumbed way the fuck down (NG3, most recently, but a lot of games in general.)

DMC2? It was disappointingly easy compared to the first game. I think the original U.S. version of DMC3 was made punishing as a reaction to that.

 

[sser]

Yeah that's right. I got the order of them mixed up. But you can see how difficult games are hard to produce sequels for with just that sequence of games from the first DMC to the third.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

That positive feedback loop sounds awful and that coupled with their obfuscation of mechanics means I'll never bother with this no matter how Josh-approved it is.

what is this even supposed to mean?

 

[DefJam101]

Hey guys just dropping by to tell you I'm not going to play this game

 

[sea]

Intredasting, but what about the stuff quoted at the beginning of this video?

Oh dear god.

It might just be dehydration talking but I haven't laughed so hard in fucking months.

 

[Metro]

Drink a bottle of water.