Demon's Souls: The remake we need right now

 But maybe not the remake we deserve

The 'Souls Game' genre is an interesting proposition. They are a series of games that promise to put you through as much trail and tribulation as they can manage to attempt at skirting the edge of fair play and balance that'll bring you unreasonably close to caving in at any given moment. That being said, the tradeoff is that after setting your blood pressure rising off the charts and putting you in constant life-or-death situations, you'll be all that more relieved once you hit the otherside and pull out a win. (if you hit the otherside) It's a type of game that highlights being unforgiving, but not unfair, and needs to constantly strike a balancing point between the two ideals that often feels a thin as a needle's point. But when they do, and if we're talking about the mainline Souls game which spawned the franchise, then they always do, it heightens that sense of victory to unbelievable vistas. (Take it from the guy who spent 30 Human Effigies last night in order to first reach, then kill 'Darklurker')

This is a formula that has since been perfected, but it started with a little PS3 exclusive game from a while back called Demon's Souls. (And yes, Demon's Souls is the first Souls-Like and not King's Field. Do you have to recollect your experience points upon dying in King's Field? No. But I will concede that there are some similarities between the two games which could imply that one influenced the other.) Now in today's age a great many folk have played and are intimately familiar with the 'prepare to die' antics of Dark Souls, but not so many people have the context of where the franchise started with Demon's Souls, even though back when it came out the game was quite the interesting concept. "A title that was brutal, vague and let other people join your game and try to kill you? How very new and exciting!" This would grow into some success in popularity and, I can only assume, sales, which spearheaded the efforts for the spiritual successor Dark Souls and birthed a new genre unto gaming. (The Miracle of life) But given the original launched 11 years ago, isn't it crazy to think that in 2020 this cult classic is literally the shining spearhead of the next-gen launch title lineup?

And I mean that honestly, no other game which has launched on either console has managed to pop and stand out nearly as gloriously as Demon's Souls. When you look at the other games there is Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a decent game that also launched on last gen, COD, same situation, Spiderman Miles Morales, a seriously gorgeous game but also nothing strictly new in terms of concept, whilst the Xbox gets... wow, nothing interesting at all... (Seriously, Mircosoft, this is embarrassing) Demon's Souls is a game that was made for PS5, and though it's a remake/remaster of a game that already existed, it's also a title that a good number of folk never played before and thus gleans with that inexplicable aura of 'brand new' despite itself. And that has allowed the truly mind-blowing spectacle of the game to just grab audiences and blow them away; Demon's Souls is a next gen system seller right now! Do you think FromSoftware ever pictured that back in 2009?

So as far as most can tell, in terms of gameplay Demon's Souls is a one-to-one with the original, keeping all the brutal punishment of the first game whilst simultaneously maintaining some of the jank. (I.e. Occasionally questionable level design and a goddamn puzzle boss. I don't know if he's as bad as The Bed of Chaos, but I shudder to think) The only addition appears to be a random and currently unopenable door which, as of the writing of this article, hasn't been figured out and makes me personally expect something in the way of surprise DLC. But even then, I doubt many could take a look at this game and struggle to call it a 'remake' considering how much this game evolves in pure spectacle alone. (This ain't no, 'slightly sharper colours in Dishonoured's remaster' scenario) This is a whole different ballgame.

Bluepoint have rebuilt the entirety of the game in a manner that resembles the original, but which takes advantage of all the hardware afforded with the PS5 to evolve the art style. An ominous bare walk towards a far away tower becomes a musky hall sprawled in shrubs and forestry, a spacious but barren temple-space becomes a dark foreboding horror scape, and as I've mentioned in past blogs, the PS3 era fire depths evolve into something mindblowingly vibrant. (I'm a sucker for good fire effects.) It really stands out to me because I've never really thought of the Souls games as titles that were particularly memorable for their graphical fidelity. I mean the games still hold up for the most part, just because of the prevailing artistic intent, but Bluepoint have gone that extra step to make Demon's Souls literally one of the prettiest games on consoles to date, if not the prettiest.

Of course, there have been some deviations from the original when it comes to pure design decisions, but myself and the thousands of others who never played the original would never notice them anyway. Some people have argued that there's an almost steampunk/Lovecraftian element to some of the creatures in the original that gets lost in this new, more uniform, art direction, with a few bosses being entirely redesigned this way. For a purist I can imagine that this could come across as startling or even a bit disappointing, Souls games are renowned for their world building and the manner in which small design choices can spell out huge implications for the story. I can't say if this was true all the way back in Demon's Souls too, I actually have no idea what that game is even about, but I understand those who do find those deviations concerning.

The one aspect about Demon's Souls which really sells the next gen, however, is the one thing that can't be seen or interpreted by those without access to this new hardware, so all we have to go off is the word of those that do. (If that's worth anything to you.) I'm talking about the new haptic feedback mechanics built into the PS5 controller itself which, according to folk who've tried it, is subtle enough not to seem gimmicky yet impactful enough to transform the experience. Reports say that the direction of the character's swing will correspond with the direction of the feedback, with hard collisions rattling on your arm as well. And even something I really don't understand about how missed arrows can be heard from the controller as they whizz past your head. (Are they talking about something similar to how the Wii remote made sounds now and then really inconsistently? Because I'm not gonna lie, I found that rather annoying myself.)

All these come together to make a Demon's Souls remake that looks like a brand new entry to the Souls pantheon for those that never played the original, although I've heard some veterans ponder whether the prevailing similarities tarnish the package. I mean that puzzle boss I mentioned earlier was a big issue for a lot of the original players because he just wasn't very fun or interesting, and he's here completely intact yet again. No one wanted a complete remake of the sort of game that folk in this industry regard as sacred, but maybe a few improvement here and there (more than just the quality of life stuff) could have gone a long way. It's the same way in which we currently hope that the Mass Effect Legendary pack evolves Mass Effect 1 a bit, because just because it was a great game back in the day doesn't mean absolutely everything holds up in the here and now. Still, it makes me smile to think that in today's age it isn't the generic shooters or gimmick-strewn Ubisoft games that are defining this generation but an artistic masterpiece which stuns today as much as it did in the late 2000's. 

Dark Demon's Souls

Time and time again

So remakes, eh? They seem to really be a hot-button issue with the gaming world right now, as though studios are reaching the Disney point of the life cycle wherein they need to capitalize upon nostalgia in order to sell their big franchise. So far I maintain that there's more purity in the videogame remake than the movie remake, just plainly in the fact that game developers need to meet modern day design standards, quality assurance and keep the heart of the original in order to get away with it, and most have managed that deftly. (The System Shock 2 remake didn't officially release so I get to not count that.) That's in opposition to the movies which, sometimes, just update the graphics and some actors whilst leaving the important stuff, the story, identical. (Looking at you "Live action" Lion King) As such, when I hear that a developer as beloved to me as FromSoftware are looking into retreading their ancestral routes I get excited at the potential, because that's what I see Demon Souls as.

Now of course, FromSoftware aren't actually the one's behind the wheel for this particular remake, that goes to Bluepoint games, (the professional remastering company, it feels like) and with that comes some hard to swallow truths I need to come to terms with. Firstly, it's very unlikely that there will be anything actually new in this Demon's Souls remake, in fact, I've already read one apparent expert on the game who said that everything he's seen so far is literally exactly the same as the base game. (Save one tutorial about wall hopping which was absent) Now whilst that should be serviceable as those who played it sing Demon's Souls' praises, FromSoftware's craft has really be finely tuned and improved upon through the years of Dark Souls games, Bloodbourne and Sekiro; it's a little disappointing to have to go back. Although in that same vein it is also a little interesting to see where all this genre-creating genius spawned from, so I'm a little of two minds about this.

Not so long back we got ourselves a little bit of a deeper dive into the gameplay of Demon's Souls thanks to the PS5 conference. That's right, no more trailers and pretty screens; actual honest to goodness gameplay! Of course, this was gameplay from someone who apparently likes to turn their HUD off for some reason, and who keeps the camera in an odd drifty angle, (then again, maybe the camera is supposed to be like that, I don't know) but it's all gameplay none-the-the-less. Watching it all I must admit that whilst the graphical fidelity look gorgeous and the thematic tonality seems to practically ooze off the screen; they could have chosen a more exciting segment to demo. What they showed off was literally the tutorial segment on the lead-up to the first boss of the game, Vanguard, who they lose too! We didn't even get to see the Dragon God in action (right after that boss) and see the origin of where FromSoftware got their 'lose in a cutscene' bone from. (Sekiro thanks you, I guess.)

Also, I'm not the only one pointing this out but it did ring a little hollow (badum-tish) in the way that they played through the demo with some sort of 'one hit kill' godmode on. This is a Souls game, right? Save your heroic demo theatrics for the impressive 'Spiderman: Miles Morales' walkthrough, these games were literally built on the bones of concepts like struggling, hardship and overwhelming failure. And sure, they went the distance and died stupidly against the first boss, "there's your 'Souls'" but it still just rubbed me the wrong way, is all. I mean I know I'm harping on about this, but Souls isn't just defined by hard bosses but the mobs along the way who can be overwhelming or whom whittle you down on the bitter path. Reducing them to briefly glanced sword fodder speaks to an inherent misunderstanding of the source material... but now I know I'm reading into this too much, I should get back on topic.

One of the natural consequences of a remake that occurs so long after the original is that technology has progressed to such a point that sometimes straight adaptations won't do, meaning it can be interesting to see the way themes mould and shift to meet different standards. The side-by-side screens we have seen tease some environmental details that lean more into explicit Gothic than perhaps their predecessor's did, which seems more in keeping with FromSoftware's later titles. Big impressive lighting structures where before there was pitch black, dramatic weather effects where before there  was but a foreboding sky and a slight redesign of Vanguard that seems to make him look more like the Asylum Demon than the large toothed creature of the original whom I've read one call almost Lovecraftian.

It's tempting, as a veteran of the franchise, to merely discard the idea of this remake and wait until the next FromSoftware title Elden Ring, (Whenever that is) but those who have never touched it may be interested to look into some of the unique, arguably even unburnished, quirks of the spiritual predecessor. There are some systems which, in the right circumstances, has the potential to make the game harder if you die, a shifting world state the reacts to the actions you take (As exciting as that sounds, I doubt there's much nuance to those actions beyond "kill this innocent NPC for no reason" and the world state itself just adds more phantoms) and cryptic almost nonsensical dialogue. (Oh wait, that's in every Souls game. Apart from Dark Souls 3, I'd argue, those NPCs seemed to be oddly straightforward. Or maybe I just got used to them.)

In truth, the only issue I have with Demon's Souls remake comes down to policy because, yet again, this is a horse pulling Playstation's exclusivity-intoxication bandwagon. All we have to look forward to is a potential PC release that was revealed in the trailer and then vehemently denied by Sony. They called it a 'human error', which says to me that they've literally just bare-faced lied to all of us and there is a PC release coming that they are intentionally misleading folk about in order to pigeon-hole them into a PS5. (Afterall, they did the exact same thing for Death Stranding) And this is why I hate exclusivity, it's not about winning people over with better policies, substantial quality of life incentives and clever marketing, it's about forcing people and, sometimes, literally lying to them. It's a practice I hate being heavily pushed by a company who I really want to respect, but who have been making that very tough these past few months. (And Demon's Souls impressive remake is caught up in it.)

As someone who has never played Demon's Souls I will admit that this new game does intrigue me, but even with the graphical updates that allure is more to check out a relic of history than to latch onto some new content. What I mean to say is, the improvements to the look of the game hasn't hidden the way that Demon's Souls feels like a predecessor, and unless the game is ready to blow my socks off with interesting and imaginative enemies down the line I can't see this title hitting me as profoundly as a new FromSoftware game would. Honestly, it looks like a really high-budget genre-rider title, which is silly to think about considering I'm literally looking at the genre's genesis. At the end of the day, however, I still want to play it and it sucks that I probably won't get to until a year or two after launch. (Thanks for nothing, Sony)

Demon's Souls

Let them return as cinders.

So I wonder what game that the event organisers decided to que after the adorable cute and inoffensive Bugsnax trailer? It would have to be something of a similar vein right, otherwise that would make Bugsnax stick out like a sore thumb and threaten to overshadow some of the other game's of the event; I mean that's just logical decision making, isn't it? Or maybe they just threw up their hands and said "Screw it", instead preferring to stick the audience with a remake of a game that, in retrospect, can be seen as one of the most influential games to the entire modern action/adventure market. That's right, next up we're talking about the game from which Dark Souls was born, the game that everyone pretends to have played, the legendary; Demon's Souls. (Thought it was 'Demon Souls' all these years. Feel like an idiot now.)

Now before I get into this I should probably share with you all just how significant this is for me, if no one else. Dark Souls and From Software are quite literally some of my most beloved entities in the entire gaming industry for what they achieved in design and narrative storytelling; If Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear were the first to show me about the fluidity of storytelling, then these guys were the first to show me the possibilities of video-game-centric storytelling and what that can look like. Their example is the one I constantly look up to in the knowledge that I'll never match them but I'm still ever hopeful to. So to get a chance to play a remastered version of the game which set that studio on the path they are on is something that I'll not waste, unless it ends up as a Sony exclusive like the original game did because I don't have the spare income to deal with that crap. I'd love to see where it all started, and Demon's Souls is that genesis point.

For those that are unfamiliar, all that beautiful Gothic thematic world-building that Dark Souls is known for was born as a spiritual successor to 2009's 'Demon's Souls'. A game that was born out of confusion and an unclear vision which evolved into a title renowned for it's difficulty and unrelenting challenge. As this series later evolved into Dark Souls, that difficulty evolved into part of the identity of the world, with the concept of failing over and over again being one of the narrative themes and even seeding into the tagline for the entire game. This game in particular didn't really hit it off too well in Japan when it first came along, but over in the West folk seemed to enjoy it's European Medieval lore and monsters. To this day one of the chief cited inspirations for the franchise (although some might say it's more-so for Dark Souls) is the famously long-lived manga and Anime; Berserk. (A manga which started before I was born and will probably end after I die)

Now with Demon's Souls' returns comes a recall to a more unburnished period of the Souls mythos which isn't burdened by the aftermath of the First Sin, the fragmentation of Manus or the tardy Lords of Cinder; this is a complete stand alone in that regard. (Somewhat similar to Bloodborne.) Personally, as someone who never had the chance to play the original Dark Souls, I'm just as excited to see another story from the minds over at From Software as I am to see the old school, although I do say that in the knowledge that the 'From Software' brand of storytelling was only really mastered by Dark Souls 2. (Say what you will about that game but you can't deny it knew how to weave a narrative just beyond plain sight) Maybe I'll find it endearing to see the mistakes in that regard, or maybe I'll see absolutely no shortcomings and be once again humbled at how infuriatingly talented these storytellers are. Either way, I'm down.

As for the content of the trailer itself; I mean it's a Souls' trailer, what do you really expect? These are the sorts of narratives that deftly weave themselves around the medium they are served on, which is partially why a Netflix Dark Souls adaptation would be impossible/ terrible, so the team wouldn't waste their plot on anything as mundane as a trailer spot. And aside from that, how exactly would one go about making a story trailer for a souls game? Maybe for DS 1 you could do a quick run-though of the war with the dragons, but that neither conveys the plot of the game in question nor is really necessary given how the first cutscene of the actual game already covered that. I do not envy the marketing team that get given the task to make a cinematic From Software trailer; and we have extra evidence of how hard that is given the trailer for Elden Ring last year. ("Oh, Elden Ring!") What the hell was any of that about?

So instead of coherence we saw something that From Software can easily tease the disparate world of shadow and ruin which characterises Hidetaka Miyazaki's entire career. (Wait, I mean that in a polite way. Not trying to say anything about his success or talent.) In the footage we get an overview of the winged monsters and creatures that threaten the Slayer of Demons and I have to say, it's rather nostalgic to see the ways in which these designs sharpened for their later titles. We see zombies with glowing eyes that obviously became the undead soldiers, a mage wielding a scythe that calls to mind DS' necromancers and Nito and even a towering guard with a huge shield that reminds me of Havel or The Looking-Glass Knight. Whatsmore than that, every single design actually looks, and I mean this with as much respect I can muster, strangely pedestrian for a From Software game.

What I mean by that is that every single creature from this trailer doesn't really look a million miles away from the other games of the action-adventure Gothic genre. Zombies with glowing eyes, winged-drakes, even the big-bad, a huge draconic demon with 8 eyes, lacks the character of later From Software titles. It seems that this was a game designed when they'd just settled on the idea of the look being 'fantastical', before they nailed down to a specific period or source of inspiration. Dark Souls draws heavily from European medieval designs, for example; whilst Bloodborne has a Victorian-tinge to it's world. Sekiro is decidedly Japanese and Elden Ring makes me think of Scandinavian myth right now, though that may be my own tinted lenses skewering perspectives. None of this is said to disparage Demon's Souls, just an observation I made. And I expect to make many more once (if) I get my hands on the game.

The whole 'Remake-economy' is getting a little out-of-hand of late, and I wondering how long it'll be before promising new projects get canned in favour of remaking older ones. (And how often that's already happened.) Given the age and difficult-to-attain nature of Demon's Souls I'm not too perturbed by it's existence specifically, but I worry for the precedent it's perpetuating. Right now I'm about 90% sure that Square Enix have halted production on a new Dues Ex in order to remake the original, and that sucks. (Not the game, the concept.) But until the shark is full jumped I suppose I can celebrate the return of a classic and be happy. Even if that tinged with a hint of dread. (Huh, just like Miyazaki likes it.)