New Dark Souls 3 gameplay goes quick steppin' with a dagger

If you got used to deftly dodging around enemies in Bloodborne, you ought to give daggers a try in Dark Souls 3. One of the game's biggest changes from its two predecessors (or three if you count Bloodborne, or four if you count Demon's Souls, or five if you count Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine) is that every weapon type now has its own "weapon arts": special abilities that augment their usual use in combat.

This footage pulled from a recent Dark Souls 3 Japanese livestream goes into detail on how daggers will work in the new game. Jump to 1:40 if you want to skip the conversation and head straight to combat.

You can see the difference between the typical Dark Souls evade roll and the dagger's "quick step" around 2:10. As usual, rolls get you out of danger fast, but they take a lot of stamina and leave you vulnerable as you stand back up. The dagger's quick step costs much less stamina and leaves you on your feet, though it also burns some mana - and unlike stamina, mana can't be replenished just by taking a breather.

Bandai Namco will release Dark Souls 3 outside of Japan on April 12. Until then, you can stare in giddy awe at its new/ancient version of Firelink Shrine.

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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 now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.