By Adam Smith on March 12th, 2012 at 9:29 am.
Masanori Takeuchi, head of R&D at From Software, spoke to Gametrailers at GDC and, among his lust for cleverphone development, he did find time to acknowledge the existence of a much-signed petition for a PC version of Dark Souls.
“That’s going to be a decision left up to the publisher, Bandai Namco, but yes, we have seen the comments and we do know of the desire for a PC version.”
Namco need to understand how easy this whole process could be and how much I would love them if they could only work things out.
So, let’s see here. Gap between console release and potential PC release, assuming six months of porting work? Just over a year. Alan Wake took six decades and still managed to make a profit within about ten minutes. It was also ported by a third party who seemed to have a good understanding of how to do a PC port justice, so we could even not-nag if it turned out Ultimate Edition Super Dark Souls was being worked on externally, right? It’s all so simple when I use one example from the recent past and have zero understanding of Namco’s operations, so why can’t they see it too?
Stacking just came to PC as well, meaning it is what all the cool kids are doing and it would be like standing outside in the cold, alone, to stay over there without us. There’s nobody left out there that you’d really want to hang out with, except maybe Journey and possibly Red Dead Redemption and…oh, just come and see how much lovely disposable income there is in PC-land. There’s loads, I promise.
Incidentally, the petition is close to 90,000 now. It’d be rude not to push it to 100,000.
12/03/2012 at 09:34 Rudel says:
Srsly, you need to play this game at a console. It is much more cheaper to destroy your PS3 gamepad (I actually was surprised how easy those things break when thrown against the wall) than killing off your gamers mouse + keyboard.
12/03/2012 at 10:01 PoulWrist says:
This is true. However, my X360 pad will work fine ;)
12/03/2012 at 10:49 povu says:
Having to buy a console first means it won’t be cheaper. :p
12/03/2012 at 16:48 Torn says:
But buying a 360 gamepad for £20, which is arguably the best gamepad you can get on a pc anyway, is not.
12/03/2012 at 17:16 exenter says:
I’d rather use a DS3 and emulate a xbox 360 controller.
12/03/2012 at 12:20 Tuco says:
Cause gamepads aren’t a common thing on PC since the ’90s, nope.
12/03/2012 at 09:35 Zeliard says:
Dark Souls @ 60 FPS will be magical. It has to happen.
12/03/2012 at 11:45 Ephaelon says:
Plus without the FPS dips (one hopes).
12/03/2012 at 13:15 bit_crusherrr says:
Aye, the FPS drops in Blight town where annoying.
12/03/2012 at 16:59 Max.I.Candy says:
running around at the bottom of Blight Town avoiding the giants and mosquitos so i could get my pyro upgrades with the framerate in minus figures- fun times
12/03/2012 at 09:37 Torn says:
100% needs to happen. However mapping the tight analogue controls will be interesting. It’ll need native gamepad support (XInput, etc) and maybe use the mousewheel for gradiented (I made that word up) running speed.
12/03/2012 at 09:49 SanguineAngel says:
Can you not do that with keyboards these days?
12/03/2012 at 11:21 Kill_The_Drive says:
No. A key is either pressed or not, there’s no middle ground.
12/03/2012 at 12:02 SanguineAngel says:
Hrm, I was sure my old colin mccrae rally game recognised partial depression. clearly I have been going barmey
12/03/2012 at 13:00 Rattlepiece says:
Shift key says hello!
12/03/2012 at 13:13 Torn says:
Shift won’t work as that only gives you two speeds, compared to an analogue stick which has a whole host of stages between tiptoing and full-on running.
12/03/2012 at 17:04 Soon says:
Maybe if w and s were accelerate and decelerate rather than simply forward and back. You’d just hold the key until you’re at the desired speed. Probably with a button to come to a full stop, though. And shift could be instant sprint, if needed.
I’d be surprised if there aren’t any games that have attempted it.
14/03/2012 at 00:13 Jeeva says:
Well, Splinter Cells up to Chaos Theory had increase/decrease speed walked mapped to the mouse wheel, and that seemed to work pretty well. But SC (was) is a far less twitch-requiring type of game, in many ways.
12/03/2012 at 09:37 caddyB says:
You’d think these publishers would understand that people who can spend a few thousand on a high end gaming machine could in fact afford a lot of games.
But then the games would have to be good, which is a deal breaker I guess.
Still, I don’t understand why great games like the ones you mentioned don’t make it to PC.
12/03/2012 at 09:40 Condawg says:
Because of exclusivity deals. Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo give developer x $y to make the game exclusive to their console, in an attempt to sell more hardware. It sucks, but it’s good business. Console exclusives come up often in 360 vs ps3 debates.
12/03/2012 at 09:52 starclaws says:
Don’t forget the 23% of XBOX 360s that died within two years causing people to rebuy new ones. They spent nearly a thousand. lol.
12/03/2012 at 14:56 HothMonster says:
If it wasn’t for the whole “3 year factory warranty for red ring issues” thing your statement would be valid.
Also, I think you mean 70%.
12/03/2012 at 17:25 liquidsoap89 says:
The warranty wasn’t originally 3 years. MS increased it to that pretty much right after they more or less solved the RROD problem (and lost millions upon millions of dollars regarding that whole issue).
12/03/2012 at 17:50 HothMonster says:
“pretty much right after they more or less solved the RROD problem”
Not sure what you mean by that since they didn’t” pretty much solve the RROD problem” until the most recent version of the xbox. Which was years after the fact. They increased the warranty after they realized the had royally fucked up and that if they did not take ownership of the major technical flaw of their units it would have been the end of them.
You are correct that they didn’t have the policy to start with. They started it in july of 07 so there was about 8 months were people who bought launch day systems were not covered.
12/03/2012 at 09:37 beetle says:
Lets hope if they do make a port, they’ll get the pricing right. If they charge 60 bucks out of the gate for a year old game, they’ll probably be disappointed with initial sales.
12/03/2012 at 09:42 Gozuu says:
Why do PC Gamers and it’s journalistic representatives directly ask for a port? I find it very odd that people even want this. It will be horribly optimized, dumbed down in both gameplay and graphics and offer literally zero support from the developers.
When will people learn? Games that focus on console, will never, ever be reasonable to play on a PC.
12/03/2012 at 09:52 SanguineAngel says:
Well, the article itself directly references the Alan Wake port as being very well ported indeed. So that is not always the case. Console ports can work just fine on PC format as long as the port is competently handled
12/03/2012 at 10:03 ThinkAndGrowWitcher says:
Gozzu: “Games that focus on console, will never, ever be reasonable to play on a PC.”
Possibly the most dumbed-down (or just plain dumb) comment in this thread.
12/03/2012 at 10:51 povu says:
Darksiders worked fine on PC.
12/03/2012 at 12:50 Unaco says:
Batman: Arkham Asylum wants a word or two with you.
12/03/2012 at 13:19 Barnox says:
And after the initial period of “everything doesn’t work”, the porting company got some public bugtesting done and now the Oddboxx works like a dream. That was initially one of the horror stories of ports.
12/03/2012 at 09:37 Casimir's Blake says:
Let us even more excitedly request a new King’s Field which, being first person, is immensely preferable.
12/03/2012 at 09:40 wodin says:
I’ve watched you tube clips of this game.I fail to see whats so special about it to be honest. All I saw was extreme difficulty bordering on the game being a lesson in frustration. Added to that pretty poor graphics and terrible animations. Please enlighten.
12/03/2012 at 10:05 PoulWrist says:
Some of us like to punish ourselves with singleplayer games that don’t hold our hands. Some of us play “roguelikes” with ASCII graphics, permadeath and difficulty through the roof. Because we think that’s fun.
12/03/2012 at 10:24 RedViv says:
Signed. Sometimes, the learning experience and wonderful death is a precious thing.
Also, the game is indeed difficult, but certainly not unfair. Compared to the previous Souls game, this one is even more fair, and certainly more difficult.
12/03/2012 at 10:34 linea says:
I think the difficulty thing in Dark Souls is easy to misunderstand. It’s not particularly difficult in terms of demanding huge amounts of dexterity or fast reaction times. I am certainly below average in terms of those things and I had no trouble finishing the game (although it did take me about 100 hours).
The things that ultimately sets it apart are that
firstly, the entire game is designed to mean that you can’t save-spam your way through it, and as a result encounters with enemies are often genuinely heart-in-mouth and exploration is a genuinely tense affair
secondly, the combat is designed in such a way that you mainly become more effective at killing enemies through your knowledge of how they attack and their weak spots rather than because your character has better statistics (although this does happen as well). So it’s both entirely possible for a sufficiently skilled player to defeat the most powerful enemies in the game with a very statistically weak character, and also for the weakest enemies to kill a very powerful high-level character if the player isn’t being careful
12/03/2012 at 10:52 Keirley says:
Yeah, I think the reason the difficulty in Dark Souls is acceptable is that most of the time it’s entirely fair – it generally just requires that you be cautious as hell. Sometimes it throws a curveball at you that does seem pretty unfair, but if you die it’s almost always because you got overconfident and ran blindly into a trap, or off a cliff, or into a horde of enemies.
12/03/2012 at 10:47 Keirley says:
I’ve read the screenplay for Casablanca and it looks properly crap.
12/03/2012 at 11:28 Bostec says:
A Gamer likes to be challenged once in a while, none of that hand holding shite that games tend to be nowadays. Plus the feeling of downing a boss that you spent an hour trying to beat? Immense.
12/03/2012 at 13:39 Drinking with Skeletons says:
The difficulty really is the only selling point. I played it, bought the guide to try to make the most of it, and just couldn’t get into it. It could’ve been a lot easier without being, well, easy. If nothing else, making the low-level enemies weaker would’ve streamlined the process enormously.
I’m replaying God of War I right now, and one of the things that’s refreshing about that franchise is that for as over-the-top as it is, and for how lowest-common-denominator it seems to be, it’s actually a decently challenging game. You can’t win without understanding how the combat works and how enemies behave, and it’s very satisfying because of that. It’s also a lot easier than Dark Souls. The same sense of challenge and fun could be said of Devil May Cry (1 & 3 at least), and they, too, are a lot easier than Dark Souls.
What I’m saying is that people act as if brutality is a revelation, when other titles have offered similar experiences while being considerably less tedious about it.
12/03/2012 at 13:47 elnalter says:
keep an eye out for this new game bioshock infinite. it’s super easy, and is basically a linear scripted track, like watching a movie with a controller in your hand. def a game for you
12/03/2012 at 17:12 Max.I.Candy says:
I hate it when ppl say that “its difficulty is its only selling point” bullshit.
The deep level of customization of my characters armour and weapons (of which there is tonnes of cool stuff you can mix and match with to make really unique combos), the optimising of his stats, the unique levelling system, the unique MP, the incredibly well designed levels, and finally the brutal and unforgiving combat, was what i loved about this game…and i’m sure ive forgotten stuff.
12/03/2012 at 19:08 Jinnigan says:
here’s some thoughts on the extremely difficulty of dark souls: i really like the way it handles losing and death. i used to avoid hard video games, but i’ve since realized i really only dislike the sort of difficult games where you aren’t supposed to lose. in dark souls the tutorial level makes it clear that you will die all the time and get ambushed by monsters and accidentally walk into boss lairs, and sometimes you will lose all your stuff, and this is working as intended. learning how to play the game is about getting a grip on the hostile environment, learning to survive, deciding on acceptable level of risks, and learning from your mistakes (it reminds me of nethack in that respect). most (at least most new) games are really about playing through a series of challenges designed to be just hard enough that you win on the first try but still feel challenged, and if you lose, the message is that you totally fucked up and are a huge loser. if you design a game like that, it’s sensible that they end up being very easy and hand-holdy because games that piss people off suck.
also, this may change later, but I’d estimate that much of the progress I’ve made in the game is in learning fighting tricks and how to navigate the levels better (fighting patterns, routes, non-obvious shortcuts etc). i spent a while playing through the first part of the initial undead area and killing the boss guy, but it wouldn’t really bother me if i lost the save at this point since there isn’t anything to stop me from blowing through it really fast now that I know what i’m doing. all games should be designed like this
the death system also avoids the OCD money/item hording issue that a lot of games have. since it’s possible to lose all your souls and life points, its often preferable to spend some on something permanent whenever possible; carrying around life points does augment your character and they’re kind of hard to come by, but there are diminishing returns, and at some point it’s better to spend some on permanently improving the bonfires or becoming human (which you lose once you inevitably die again) to gain access to certain game elements rather than hording a ton of points that you risk losing eventually.
12/03/2012 at 20:52 Ruffian says:
It’s all about skill my friend, some of us gamers still enjoy testing our skills. It’s a trial by fire! I want more hard games.
12/03/2012 at 21:56 wodin says:
I play Dwarf Fortress (granted with ironhands graphics) so graphics don’t mean much to me. Though I’d rather see DF irongand graphics than poor 3D, which has no personality of charm.
I don’t mind games being difficult aslong as it’s not a battle against the designer or just poor game design in general. If a game difficulty is based on twitch or hitting the right part at the right time while pushing up twisting left and balancing a plate on your head kind of thing is what I hate (I exagerated there). Difficulty as it requires thought or time or interaction that isn’t twitch based is fine.
As I said Dark Souls looks like a cheap 3D rpg thats lauded because it’s exetremely difficult.
13/03/2012 at 00:29 Pointless Puppies says:
It’s a game that’s brilliantly designed from beginning to end with excellent subtlety in every facet of the experience, from the narrative to the level design to the enemy placement and behavior layout to the brilliant multiplayer. It’s a game that’s just as deep in its combat mechanics as it is in its RPG stat chasing.
You’re not going to get any of that from watching a 5 minute video on youtube. That’s like saying “I watched the ending of Citizen Kane on youtube and it looked like shit”.
12/03/2012 at 09:41 Kdansky says:
No need. I bought a console to play it, and it was worth it.
12/03/2012 at 10:09 PoulWrist says:
I have a 360, but with even an inkling of hope of it being a PC title I will postpone purchasing it indefinitely till I have a response for whether or not there will be a port. Having stable framerates and crisp, detailed graphics is far preferable … It’s not that there’s any graphic whoring from my side, but rather that whenever I swap my monitor input to the composite Xbox input (which I figure gives pretty much same quality as HDMI, without requiring me to get a jack-jack cable to pull sound out of my monitor and into amp) I can’t help but cry at the horrible low-resolution image that is displayed on there :( It is passable for Forza 4, but… dearest me I wish I could run it on my PC … just for the added sharpening of image and track textures…
12/03/2012 at 11:05 Kdansky says:
Actually, the graphics on the PS3 are crisp enough to be played on a 50″ Plasma-TV from across the room, of course, the game looks really good due to its strong art direction. It’s only 720p, and there is a single area (blight-town) where the frame-rate drops badly, sometimes below 20. On the other hand, analog walking controls are pretty much required for quite a few difficult spots. The control scheme is also very console-specific, and would probably translate very weirdly to PC.
It *could* look even better on PC, but that’s really not a necessity.
And your composite input is catastrophically bad compared to HDMI. There’s your reason why everything’s blurry. Just buy a new cable for 10$.
12/03/2012 at 14:44 ulix says:
On PS3 you can output sound through composite, while outputting picture AND sound through HDMI.
Don’t know if this is possible on Xbox, but this way you can hook up your console directly to your amp, and just tune down the volume to minimum on the TV.
12/03/2012 at 17:33 Max.I.Candy says:
it is possible (with a bit of hacking of the component or composite cable)
you need to strip the plastic off the end of the cable to reveal just the metal, by doing this you can plug in BOTH the HDMI and the component.(thereby enabling the use of the component cable purely for audio).
M$ were being there usual cheeky selves by not making this easier to do,obviously to force ppl into buying their own Optical/audio adapter.
16/03/2012 at 19:57 Lulzbat says:
Whats wrong you afraid of losing your console exclusive ?
12/03/2012 at 09:41 hiddy says:
Could it be……..
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/german-magazine-pc-action-to-reveal-the-pc-version-of-an-exclusive-console-rpg/
12/03/2012 at 09:51 Patches the Hyena says:
Wow, that is crazy interesting. We could know in less than a month!
12/03/2012 at 10:03 PoulWrist says:
:O I hope it’s not something silly like Final Fantasy … what other console exclusive RPGs are there? That are “big” enough to warrant this?
12/03/2012 at 10:33 Johnny Lizard says:
Fable 2?
12/03/2012 at 17:05 paterah says:
I’d love to see FF on PC.
12/03/2012 at 17:09 Doesn'tmeananything says:
FF games are already on PC. Just load up Youtube, type *FF of your choice* playthrough, and there you go.
12/03/2012 at 21:07 pipman3000 says:
in fact why does anyone want dark souls on the pc you can just find an lp somewhere why buy play any game if someone’s already done it?
13/03/2012 at 05:11 malkav11 says:
I suspect he’s implying that there’s nothing to Final Fantasy games beyond cutscenes. Which is wrong, but hey.
13/03/2012 at 05:15 Doesn'tmeananything says:
One is a series of completely linear games with an emphasis on inane story and cutscenes and terribly boring combat.
The other is a complete opposite of that.
heh wats the diferense rait gais??
12/03/2012 at 11:49 RedViv says:
Could also be Dragon’s Dogma. That would be absolutely grand too.
12/03/2012 at 15:34 Khemm says:
That’s possible! Capcom has been showing some PC love lately with absolutely stellar PC versions.
12/03/2012 at 09:45 Eclipse says:
It’s also interesting to know that Dark Soul uses the PhyreEngine by Sony, even if it’s surely a modified version to support xbox 360 as well.
PhyreEngine runs on PC too, supporting both DirectX9 and 11.
12/03/2012 at 10:01 AmateurScience says:
I caved and picked it up for the xbox*:
Wow am I bad at this. I haven’t had enough time to really sit down and have a proper session with it yet, and I get the feeling that (initially at least) I’ll need to put in a solid 4-5 hour chunk of playtime to de-atrophy my twitch skills.
What really surprises me is how hard to find the game is (in shops at least: I still try to make my xbox purchases at a dedicated shop). Critical acclaim =/= commercial success so how well did it actually sell in the end?
* If this does arrive on PC I shall most certainly be buying it nonetheless.
12/03/2012 at 10:54 Henke says:
My advice would be: Keep at it, and don’t be afraid to use the Wiki if you get stuck. ( http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/ )
12/03/2012 at 10:06 LostTrousers says:
I had to register again just to post this, not sure why but my old account failed to work, so here goes:
I don’t think Dark Souls should be straight on ‘ported’ to the PC. It needs much, much more work to do it justice.
Don’t get me wrong, Dark Souls is one of my favourite games of all time. It has an amazing feel and difficulty progression like no other. PvP is an awesome and intense experience when it works. However, the slurry of poor online play design decisions, bugs and connectivity issues on the consoles IT WAS DESIGNED FOR make me feel like FromSoftware isn’t equal to the task.
I’ve had this sitting at the back of my mind now, so here is a short list of things that I feel should be improved to do the “Souls” experience justice on PC.
-White Sign Summons ( co op play) – Needs a ‘dungeon finder’, or some other way to connect people who are at the same level to those who want help. Current system involves standing around and waiting for someone to come on by.
-Backstabs- Unless FromSoftware can guarantee a lag free experience, these needs to be removed from player combat. They are too unpredictable and dependent on connectivity. Getting stabbed in the back (locked into place, can take no actions and usually die instantly) by someone who was previously on the other side of the room does not make for a satisfying pvp experience.
-PvP invasions and levels- The mechanics of the game already acknowledge that your individual character level has nothing to do with your true skill in game. It is your ability to learn from your mistakes and adapt (once again, an essential part of the game) that determines your capabilities. So why isn’t this the guiding rule of PvP? There should be some ranking that goes on behind the scenes.
I realise this has turned into quite a long post so let me reiterate; I really like Dark Souls but feel that the amount of effort needed to turn Dark Souls into a proper, functioning and polished PC title IS MORE than what FromSoftware are prepared to offer. Game needs a sequel designed with PC in mind from the ground up
12/03/2012 at 10:18 Lobotomist says:
Release it on PC, and i will buy 2 copies. One for me, and second for my cat !
12/03/2012 at 15:01 HothMonster says:
Where can I apply for this “your cat” job?
12/03/2012 at 10:20 RedViv says:
Yes please. This game is wonderful, and I’ll gladly buy it again to support such decisions. If the port is done well, that is. This game requires a bit of effort.
12/03/2012 at 10:20 UncleLou says:
I’d buy it again, just to support them. And to be able to play it without the, at times, horrendous framerate problems of the PS3 version.
I would also be a bit scared how it would be received, though. The engine isn’t exactly cutting edge, and a straight port to high-resolution PC screens where people sit 10 inches away won’t do it any favours.
And as much as I am a kb/m fan, I really can’t imagine the controls would work half as well as they do with a gamepad – Dark Souls has, in my opinion, the best melee combat system I’ve seen in a game, and a lot is owed to how it is mapped to the gamepads. That said, being able to walk backwards/strafe without locking on could work nicely.
That shouldn’t keep them from porting it, I just hope the PC community won’t get immediately irritated by dubious textures and the need (?) to use a pad. It would be a shame.
12/03/2012 at 10:22 Quizboy says:
I’d buy it again for the PC, if only to play through again with the framerate sorted out. I can’t imagine how they’d implement usable mouse and keyboard controls for the poor fools who JUST. WILL. NOT. USE. A. FILTHY. CONSOLE. GAMEPAD. though.
What I’d do is just change the text that appeared on death when you had mouse controls enabled to YOU MOUSED.
12/03/2012 at 10:54 Vjaas says:
The framerate really IS a problem. Actually made me put down the game, after I heard a pc-version might happen.
This PC-gamers-MUST-use-mouse thing really annoys the hell out of me. PC users who keep clinging to their rodent in games like these should be hung by it’s tail. For the more detached, cordless mouse stonings are also in order.
So inherent gamepad support is a must. (The Mass Effect PC treatment is just infuriating in this light)
12/03/2012 at 15:15 HothMonster says:
If you know people that refuse to play PC games with a gamepad just buy them Super MeatBoy and laugh at them when either a) their fingers fall off or b) they punch a hole in their monitor in frustration.
12/03/2012 at 10:34 JackDandy says:
Please, let this happen!…
12/03/2012 at 11:10 fenriz says:
why do i want it? What’s pc about this game?
12/03/2012 at 11:28 neems says:
Well it’s a very, very good game. For people who wish to play very good games. So if you have some sort of gaming machine that you wish to play good games on, this would be a good game to play.
Hopefully.
12/03/2012 at 11:46 Khemm says:
If you played and loved Severance Blade of Darkness – it’s very similiar in terms of gameplay. That’s why many consider Dark Souls pretty “PC” and have shown interest in the game.
12/03/2012 at 11:53 fenriz says:
you mean it has that kind of cranky weird combat that reminds us of Alone in the Dark, Bioforge and Dark Earth?
No combos, no cartoonish swinging, no twirling?
On a side note, i recently beat Die by the Sword. Horrid.
12/03/2012 at 12:56 Khemm says:
No, I mean awesome combat requiring a lot of skill and patience, here’s a video of Severance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZdP83kxT-U
12/03/2012 at 15:23 fenriz says:
but i like that cranky weird combat in Bioforge, realistic and complex.
12/03/2012 at 13:33 BlitzThose says:
wow someone thats actually played or heard of Dark Earth, I salute you sir.
12/03/2012 at 12:58 Unaco says:
Maybe we shouldn’t be looking at games as PC games, and console games… but just as games.
12/03/2012 at 15:19 fenriz says:
but i don’t like “just games”, like uuh i dont’ care what i play, i just wanna play some shit. Partly i wanna use my brain, interact, solve problems. Not just play and while i play my spirit comes out of my body and i watch myself play, and i go “oh, that’s nice”.
I’d like a pc game in the sense that it shouldn’t be spectacularized, shiny and kool, a pc game is humble, grey, shabby, has a grey wool cap and a brownish dusty jacket, and carefully hides immense beauty.
IF this game here is like that, dirty, rough and awkward, then PC gamers, which i embody(jokingly) might be interested. But there should be something to do beside slaying someone’s sons and daughters.
You know what this picture reminds me of? Lure of the Temptress. Ooh now i’d sign a petition for a game like that, even if it mixes combat.
12/03/2012 at 15:03 HothMonster says:
“What’s pc about this game?”
They call the souls dark instead of black, very PC of them.
12/03/2012 at 15:29 fenriz says:
well that’s subjective. Dark is generic, shallow, a bit patronizing, very console. Black is specific, material, realistic and lacking immediate charm, like PC.
12/03/2012 at 16:23 HothMonster says:
i was making a politically correct joke. Perhaps I should have went with, “It would be more PC if they called it African-American Souls.” But that seemed too culturally specific.
12/03/2012 at 11:49 Metalhead9806 says:
THey would need to release it at a 40 dollar price point for me to even consider it. I’ve already purchased and completed the game twice.
Why buy again at full price? The majority of gamers either game on console or own both PC and console platforms.
12/03/2012 at 13:57 Tuco says:
You make too much baseless assumptions.
12/03/2012 at 16:25 Metalhead9806 says:
By assuming most gamers have multiple platforms? ehh maybe.
12/03/2012 at 14:26 trjp says:
I’m still confused by the apparent popularity of a PC port of this – because it does all the things people usually complain about in PC games – to wit…
Designed for consoles
Has only 1 savegame (a design concept not a limitation but still)
Demands a controller to play (you could not get it’s combat system onto a kb/mouse as-is)
Has a difficulty curve like a rollercoaster after a tornado has passed…
If they released it I strongly suspect that between moaning about things like those and the likely technical limitations of the game (designed for consoles means it will look a bit chunky on a decent PC) PC gamers would generally kick it in the teeth.
PC RPG players already have a huge range of RPGs to play – I really, really don’t see what the DS games would bring which we don’t already have???
12/03/2012 at 14:32 Dominic White says:
Given that the Souls games play almost completely unlike ANYTHING on the market (aside from the King’s Field series on the PS1/PS2, which they’re a continuation of), they bring a whole lot of fresh ideas to the table, including one of the cleverest and most unique takes on multiplayer I’ve ever seen.
They’re also very inherently console games, and I think that if it did come to PC, we’d see a whole lot of whining that they didn’t completely redesign the game from the ground up. But those guys can suck it, because they’re wrong and dumb.
12/03/2012 at 15:29 trjp says:
Aside from the multiplayer (which is bizarre to say the least) what exactly do you see in DS which you don’t see in Skyrim, Risen and 100 other PC RPGs??
Apart from the absolutely nutso difficulty and wide-open willingness to screw the player repeatedly?? P:)
12/03/2012 at 15:51 Dominic White says:
The difficulty isn’t that high – the combat is pretty slow and tactical. It’s a much more hands-on, physics-driven combat engine than most. You want to use a spear and shield if you’ve got a long and narrow corridor to cover, because a greatsword would bounce off the walls, but if you’ve got a height advantage, a heavy weapon with a strong jumping attack is exceptionally useful.
Dark Souls has a lot in common with the original Castlevania in term of design – every room is a puzzle, and enemy placement is very clever and challenging. Skyrim is a great big heightmap filled with randomly spawning enemies. Dark Souls is a game that makes you fear each new corner you turn because you really don’t know what challenges you’ll find, and how you’ll deal with them.
This look at Castlevania 1 + 2 highlights why CV1′s design worked so well, and it almost all applies to the Souls series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aip2aIt0ROM
12/03/2012 at 16:18 trjp says:
I’d disagree about the difficulty – every single person I’ve spoken to who’s played this (and I myself) ran into brick wall after brick wall of stuff it took dozens of attempts to get past.
I’d not mind so much if some of it was a bit more obvious to solve AND that it didn’t make you redo so much stuff (in seems to particularly like making you walk a lot)
Has DS been successful on PS3 and 360? It surprised me that it did as well as it did (given it’s unforgiving nature on a platform where games are generally anything but) but I see lots of cheap copies of it which isn’t boding well to my mind?
12/03/2012 at 16:30 Metalhead9806 says:
OMG! When I first played Dark Souls I turned to my brother and said “This is exactly what a true 3d Castlevania game would play like. The back tracking, the bosses, puzzles.
My brother called me crazy so its nice someone feels the same way i do.
12/03/2012 at 19:50 thebigJ_A says:
Most people i’ve talked to (and myself) ran into very few brick walls. (bar, perhaps, Smough & Ornstein, but even that was really fun)
But then, most people i talked to used the MP aspects heavily.
Get to a new area? Throw down a soul sign and help someone else get through theirs. Now you’ve got a heads-up on what’s coming, plus rewards if you made it. Summon other people to help you as much as possible, especially for boss fights.
The game really does come alive when played as intended, using all th unique multiplayer mechanics.
13/03/2012 at 05:16 malkav11 says:
It has been surprisingly successful, as was its predecessor. I say surprisingly because it took widespread importing of the Asian release of Demon’s Souls (not the Japanese release, but the one aimed at the wider Asian market, which had English voiceovers) to convince the companies involved that there was even a market for the game in the Western world, and even then people who were familiar with the game from “here’s a cool Japanese game you’ll probably never get to play” type news stories like myself were convinced that it was going to be one of those games with a tiny print run that disappears shortly after launch and never again sees store shelves. …instead it sold so well that it was added to the PS3′s Greatest Hits lineup.
12/03/2012 at 18:06 HothMonster says:
Challenge, fear, excitement and most importantly consequences.
13/03/2012 at 11:16 who_me says:
Here’s my take on this. I really hope the petition works and DS will be ported.
There is, however, another way that would really show we are committed to buying the title should it be ported to PC. Call Namco on its bluff, let them set up a funding of the future port. They will say something like “guys, unless we are able to raise/get pledges for X amount to port this title it’s not going to get ported.” Use pledgie, kickstarter, whatever else they fancy for this project.