One of the larger concerns that has come up with From Software’s Dark Souls 2 is that the game will be easier, due to comments made by the new directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura that it would be more “accessible”.
Speaking to Siliconera, Tanimura set those fears to rest, stating that, “I personally like difficult games myself, so if I had the opportunity to make a bold difference, it would have been to make the game even more difficult.
“But obviously this is a sequel to a series, so I have no intentions of turning the tables 180 degrees. So no, there is no intent by myself to make the game easier at all.”
Of course, it isn’t just about killing players. When balancing enemies, Tanimura says, “It’s easy to kill players. It’s also easy to frustrate them. Which is why, it’s important for players to anticipate death, to understand why it happened, and to create a strategy. To overcome and defeat death, that is the core of Dark Souls.
“As for the process itself, we never go ‘We need an enemy; let’s put one here.’ Instead, we try to think about what kind of enemy will evoke a certain type of emotion that we want to communicate at that point, whether it be fright or elation. Our primary focus is on the emotional aspect that we want to be portrayed.”
Dark Souls 2 is currently slated to release in 2014 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.