After being inundated with fan demand and online petitions for a PC version of Dark Souls, Namco Bandai let players know that their voices were heard. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is coming to the PC, as a new-and-improved port of the game that’s been enthralling masochistic console gamers since last year. At E3, we sat down with Dark Souls producer Daisuke Uchiyama to talk about the design philosophy behind the Souls series, what content’s been added, and what the developers expect PC gamers will do with the game.

Daisuke Uchiyama: New NPCs, new weapons, new items. There are actually three new stages, and four new bosses. Where the story’s set, in terms of new content…in the console version [of Dark Souls], there was a sort of dark force, the Darkmoon. The new areas are the same areas, but back in time. So we’re about 200 or 300 years back in the past, and the story will start to explain a little bit more about the character Artorias, who was only represented by text in the console version – but now we’ll actually be able to see him.

[gesturing at the screen] This is a small portion of the new content, but in the original version, when you communicate with other players in the online space, you often used what we called gestures – you bow or wave to other characters. Now, we’ve added a new item called carvings: what happens is, when you drop [these engraved clay pots] on the ground, you’ll hear verbal representations. “Thank you.” “Help me.” [laughs]

DU: No – the original version on the console was fairly complete, and it’s what we wanted to provide. But ever since we released the console version, there was that online petition, saying PC gamers wanted the game on [their platform of choice]. So we really took that into consideration and decided to make a PC version – but just having a straight port to the PC would’ve been too boring. So we started to discuss what we could add on as bonus content; based on those discussions, there was a bit more than we actually anticipated - so we decided to add on a little bit more to the game. It’s not that we weren’t able to do it [before]; it’s a result of our plans for releasing on the PC.

DU: [laughs] We often ask ourselves: why do people continue to play, continue to torture themselves, when playing this difficult game? The underlying concept when we were first developing this game was, not to make a difficult game, but to provide a sense of achievement, a sense of accomplishment. We want that big sense of satisfaction, and when we were thinking of providing a big sense of satisfaction, we thought, “the harder the challenge, the better the happiness when you finally overcome it.” The bigger your fist clench when you finally defeat a boss. That’s sort of a result of why people continue to challenge themselves: the rewards you get from being able to conquer these challenges. It’s a tough question to answer, but I think that’s why people continue to play. We’re pretty happy with the results.

DU: Though we will have minimal support for the keyboard and mouse, because the game has been balanced and tuned to fit gameplay using the gamepad, we’re hoping that even PC gamers will [be willing] to use and play with a gamepad, just for the full experience.

DU: One of my favorites is Artorias. He’s a character that we’re using for the packaging, the reason being: in the console version, you only heard of the name Artorias. You heard that he was this legendary character. But now that we’re moving into the past, we can actually see how he fits into the whole setting and story, and you can finally see how hard he is. You get the “Oh my god” sense [of difficulty] when facing Artorias. With all the tie-ins [to the previous game], and because we’ve only been able to imagine him up until this point, Artorias is probably my favorite.

DU: I’m not sure if we’re talking about that at this point – but there’s actually an item in the game…it’s not the most superior, it’s not the most powerful or anything like that, but it’s one of the more “special” ones. It’s special in the sense that is has a negative influence upon the player. [laughs] How it acts as a negative…hopefully, players will try to find out. But in order to get that item, you have to defeat a boss who’s unbelievably hard to kill. By defeating him, you’ll get that negative item. That’s probably one of the harder things to get in the game, and it’ll probably take the most time to try and find and use it. We’re hoping that players will be able to achieve that and use it for themselves.

DU: With PC gamers, it’s almost the default that people share save data, or create mods and stuff like that. A game like Skyrim supports that; in terms of Dark Souls, we’re hoping that people will try to continue to play the full experience – the true experience – without sharing [saves] or anything like that. We think that players will have the best experience when they play the game the way it’s designed, so mods, and any of that sort of functionality that PC gamers are used to, probably won’t fit within the Dark Souls game design. So we’re hoping that players will play it as it should truly be played. At the same time, a lot of that stuff is expected; ultimately, it’ll be up to players [to decide how they want to play it].

DU: Games like Elder Scrolls, even from the time of Oblivion – they take on that fantasy world, and obviously there’s a lot to learn from them. I think what they create is very true, as well – we’d be kidding ourselves to try and compare with them. When Miyazaki-san [Hidetaka Miyazaki, director on Dark Souls and Demon Souls] created Demon Souls, he’s been inspired by literature from back in his childhood, as well as imagery based on pieces like Lord of the Rings. There’s always that sort of Northern European / Western take [on fantasy]; his interpretation of that kind of world is what we visualized in Dark Souls. I don’t think he feels that his world is perfect, or that it’s what it should be – it’s just his take on it. There’s a lot to learn, and a lot to respect, from other games and media that take on the same sorts of fantasy world.

DU: [chuckles, grinning from ear to ear] It’s tough to say. I’ve personally played over 400 hours of the game, and I still feel that there’s a lot more to be played and experienced. But then, on my team, there are other people who have a tough time fighting through the tutorial. A lot of my colleagues get to Anor Londo and find that’s where [their wall is], and they can’t get any further past that. I think [player enjoyment is based on] the sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction that you get from the actual gameplay, rather than finishing the complete game. There are a lot of replay factors in Dark Souls, and it depends on the style of each gamer. I think that people who like this type of game will continue to play, and people who don’t will probably pick up Call of Duty and play that forever and ever [laughs]. It’s tough to say.

DU: Thank you very much!

For more coverage of the Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, check out the latest trailer. Also be sure to check out our list of the 19 most rage-inducing games, which Dark Souls earned a well-deserved spot on. You can play the Prepare to Die Edition when it’s released on PC this August, or as DLC for consoles later in the year.