Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls

Project Dark, the followup to 2009’s critically acclaimed Demon’s Souls, has been given an official name and the first concrete details. Excited? You should be. It’s called Dark Souls and Famitsu has the latest Intel, all of which we’re about to regurgitate for you.

• There will be a lot more exploration in Dark Souls, featuring wide open. seamless fields in which to traverse. Anything you see on screen, you can reach. That castle or dungeon in the background? You will get there eventually.
• The game has no map, just a position marker.
• Dark Souls will be as challenging as Demon’s Souls. The team wants a game that will be tough, but ultimately rewarding. A sense of achievement is paramount. 
• The game will play similarly to Demon’s Souls. The plan is to kill you a lot, so you get better.
• Dark Souls is not set in the same world as Demon’s Souls, and will have an original story. It will not have the same “hub” format, either, instead featuring a variety of maps connected to a seamless open world.
• Level designs will be more complex.
• Inspired by medieval dark fantasy, contains themes like “high fantasy of kings and knights”, “death and the depths of the earth”, and “the flames of chaos.”
• Players will get a lot more freedom with how they choose to play the game. Character creation will not be class based. The number of spells and weapons will be increased, as will attack animations.
• Co-op and PvP will appear, with online connectivity similar to that of Demon’s Souls. Just like the last game, you can watch other players die, and read messages they leave behind.
• No Soul Tendency this time, as the studio doesn’t want dedicate servers. Instead the focus will be on “mutual roleplaying”, something that will be detailed at another time.

Most of this sounds fairly terrific to me. I can’t wait!

[Via NeoGAF]