Dark Souls II 'more straightforward'

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New co-director says he likes to "be more direct than subtle"

Players who love fighting their games for every last bit of satisfaction squealed with delight when Dark Souls II was revealed at Spike's Video Game Awards Friday night. But an altered course for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 game, mentioned in an EDGE interview with new directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, may worry those tenacious few.

The From Software directors, who are taking over from Hidetaka Miyazaki, said they hope to make the next game more approachable for newcomers than its notoriously convoluted predecessors. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls incorporated whole systems which even moderately experienced players may never realize they're interacting with. In terms of depth versus accessibility, they definitely favored the former.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between being understandable and being easy--perhaps Dark Soul II will just have better documentation and a friendlier user interface to keep you informed as some giant horror beast smears you against the wall. Or it may mean a more fundamental difference in the game's design.

What do you think, could the Souls series use a little bit of user-friendliness or do you prefer it ornery and obtuse?

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.