At last year's Tokyo Game Show, From Software thrilled fans of its engrossing RPG adventure Demon's Souls, with news of an indirect successor, Project Dark. Now, according to a preview in Japanese magazine Famitsu, that game has been re-named Dark Souls and it's coming out sometime in the future for both PS3 and Xbox 360.
Details are sparse, but a kindly visitor to the Neogaf games forum has provided a rough translation of the Famitsu article. Apparently, Dark Souls is not a sequel to Demon's Souls and will not take place in the same 'universe'. However, it DOES have a 'medieval dark fantasy' setting and it features a similar online component, allowing players to see where others have died in the game world; it will also support co-operative and versus play. It seems, though, that Dark Souls will feature a larger, more seamlessly integrated environment, which will be fully explorable, in contrast to the hub-based system of Demon's Souls. Leaked scans of the Famitsu article certainly show a strong visual connection between the two titles.
It seems that Namco Bandai will distribute the game in Europe, as it did with Demon's Souls. No doubt we'll find out more at E3.
For now, Xbox 360 owners can rejoice in the fact that they'll finally find out why so many of their PS3-owning peers had Demon's Souls down as their game of the year in 2010 (unless they bought it in Japan, in which case, 2009).
