Dark Souls 2 “Still Being Balanced”, Will Have Boss Battles Part-way Through Stages

From Software’s Dark Souls 2 has been keeping a bit of a low profile since its initial reveal, popping up only at E3 2013 to confirm its release date. That doesn’t mean work isn’t on-going however, as Namco’s Takeshi Miyazoe spoke to VG247 about various details surrounding the upcoming dungeon crawler including how it handles bosses this time around.

As revealed before, Dark Souls 2 is now open world in structure. How does that affect boss battles, especially since players had to grind in order to effectively beat bosses in the original? Miyazoe responded that, “As much as the dev team is still balancing the game, I think there will be key moments in the game – not just challenges by story or difficulty – but there will be key enemies and bosses in the game that will challenge the players enough. There will be areas where we’re revisiting some of the boss battles as well, where you’ll be able to encounter boss battles part-way through the stage.

“You won’t have to start from one venue, go through to the end, beat the boss and then start from a new venue. There will be be areas where you can meet the boss halfway. if you’re good enough or paying enough attention you might be able to defeat them early. We’re trying to create a more interactive gameplay flow so that we sort of break a little bit in terms of the traditional ‘start point, boss and then new start point’ mechanic. I think that’s one of the challenges we’re trying to overcome through game design.”

Dark Souls 2 is slated to release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on March 14th 2014.