For nearly two years, rumours and leaks had been suggesting very strongly that Bluepoint Games were working on a Demon’s Souls remake that would be a launch title for the PS5- which, of course, has proven to be exactly right over the last few months. Given the excellent job that Bluepoint did with Shadow of the Colossus, there’s plenty of reasons to be excited for this remake of a beloved PS3 classic. With not long left until Demon’s Souls launches with the PS5, here, we’ll be going over a few crucial details you should know about it.
PREMISE
Let’s start with the basics, shall we? Presumably, many who will be playing Demon’s Souls on the PS5 will have had plenty of experience with the PS3 original as well, but for quite a few players, this will be their introduction to the game. So what exactly is Demon’s Souls all about? The game takes place in the kingdom of Boletaria, where an old and ancient evil known as the Great One has reawakened, enveloping the kingdom in a thick fog and sending forces of demons everywhere. You play as an unnamed hero who ventures into Boletaria after being bound in death to the Nexus, to restore peace to Boletaria.
LOADING AND 3D AUDIO
Demon’s Souls, like any Souls game, is a game that will be full of failures- you will die, and die a lot, which means the game’s going to be doing plenty of saving and loading. That works out well, of course, because thanks to its SSD, cutting down on load times significantly is one of the most notable things it can do. That’s what it does in Demon’s Souls as well, fast loading means you’ll be jumping right back into the action quickly upon death. Meanwhile, it’s also been confirmed that, like several other upcoming major releases, Demon’s Souls will boast 3D audio thanks to PS5’s Tempest engine.
DUALSENSE FEATURES
Speaking of PS5 features that Demon’s Souls is leveraging like various other upcoming games, the remake will also tap into the DualSense controller’s haptics and adaptive triggers. Speaking about the game’s usage of haptic feedback, the developers have said that the Demon’s Souls remake “feel every blow as you strike down your enemies and cast each spell”, making combat feel “grittier, darker, and deadlier.” Meanwhile, the adaptive triggers will also come into play, providing different sensations of feedback based on different spells and attacks, and even smaller things such as pulling levers and switches.
RAY-TRACING
Hardware-accelerated ray-tracing is becoming standard across all next-gen consoles, and Demon’s Souls is one of many PS5 launch titles that will be utilizing that feature (among the likes of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Watch Dogs: Legion, and more). The extent to which ray-tracing is used remains to be seen – it’s possible that that is restricted to things such as shadows and reflections – but based on what we’ve seen of it so far, Demon’s Souls is turning out to be a beautiful looking game.
MORE VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS
Given how vastly better it looks than Demon’s Souls on the PS3, it’s no surprise that ray-tracing is far from the only change the remake makes. It’s a ground up remake, after all. There’s additional detail everywhere, from things such as blood spatter, character animals, and foliage, to atmospheric lighting, much more detailed character models, improved particle effects, and more. All in all, in true Bluepoint fashion, Demon’s Souls is probably going to be an early showcase of what the PS5’s hardware is capable of.
PERFORMANCE AND 4K MODES
Demon’s Souls will also allow you to choose between two modes with which to play the game. There’s the 4K mode, which, as its name suggests, will allow you to run the game in 4K, but with a frame rate locked to 30 FPS. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a smoother experience, you can opt for the Performance mode, where the resolution might dip to 1080p or 1440p, but the frame rate will target a solid 60 FPS.
MULTIPLAYER
The Souls games are largely solo experiences, but multiplayer is still considered a pretty big part of the series (if it can even be called a series). A recent update to the game’s official PlayStation webpage mentioned that multiplayer would be returning with a maximum of up to 6 players, which, honestly, most players would have been expecting anyway. Curiously, Sony have since removed any mentions of multiplayer, so we don’t officially know if that particular detail is correct.
ADDITIONAL ITEMS
Bluepoint Games and co-developers SIE Japan Studio are clearly making a game that will remain quite faithful to the original, especially in the most important details- but you can expect them to tinker with some details here and there. For instance, the Demon’s Souls remake will feature items, armour pieces, and weapons for players to use that were never in the original game. For instance, there’s the Reaper Scythe, which is described as “a pole weapon with a curved blade on one end that is so sharp that they say it can sever your soul from your body.” Supposedly, it can “mow down many targets in a single blow, but is difficult to handle and requires both strength and dexterity to use.”
DESIGN CHANGES IN BOSSES
As with any Souls game, the boss battles are the beating heart of Demon’s Souls, and you’d imagine that Bluepoint and Sony Japan would be bringing them over into the remake pretty much as is. Beyond that, however, it seems like they’ve made some interesting visual changes, largely for the better. We’ve seen the likes of Tower Knight and Vanguard, for instance, and one thing is clear to see with both of them- though their larger designs have been kept faithful to their original renditions, they’re now teeming with a lot more detail, from intricate engravings and patterns on Tower Knight’s massive shield to a much paler, more sickly look to Vanguard’s leathery hide.
NEXT-GEN ONLY
When Demon’s Souls was confirmed as a PS5 launch title back in September, there was some confusion about which platforms the game would come out now. Amidst several questions about cross-gen announcements and PS5 games that might also come to PC, several such question emerged for Demon’s Souls as well, especially since the trailer initially uploaded by Sony said that the game would be coming to PC as well. That, however, turned out to be a mistake. That trailer was taken down, fixed, and re-uploaded, while Sony have also clarified that Demon’s Souls is exclusive to the PS5- one of very few games to actually say that about itself.
FILE SIZE
Given how visually stunning Demon’s Souls is already looking – as well as the fact that this is by no means going to be a small game – you’d expect it to have a pretty large file size (especially being a next-gen exclusive). You wouldn’t be wrong. Demon’s Souls will require 66 GB of free storage space on your console. In case you were wondering, the original Demon’s Souls was just a little over 8 GB on the PS3 back in 2009.
PRICE
Sony were the first platform holder to follow in the footsteps of Take-Two Interactive and declare that their standard prices would be increasing with the onset of next-gen. As such, Demon’s Souls, like most (if not all) other upcoming AAA Sony releases, will cost $70 instead of the standard $60 we’ve gotten used to over the years.
DIGITAL DELUXE EDITION
If you’re willing to spend even more money on the game, you can go ahead and purchase the Digital Deluxe Edition. For $89.99, on top of the game itself and its original soundtrack, this package will also immediately give you access to several bonus in-game items, from armour such as Red-Eye Knight Armour and Boletarian Royalty Armour, to weapons such as Ritual Blade, and much more.