FromSoftware's Souls series has produced some of the hardest and most brutally difficult RPGs in recent years. It started in 2009 with the PS3's infamously cruel Demon's Souls, but now it's back for its fourth outing with Dark Souls III. Until recently, there had been some suggestion that this might be the last game to bear the Dark Souls moniker, but director and now company president Hidetaka Miyazaki has since confirmed that this isn't the case, as he hopes Dark Souls III will instead provide a "turning point" for the franchise and the studio itself.
This is probably due to the fact that FromSoftware is also responsible for Bloodborne, which is a spin-off from the Souls games and one of the big PS4 exclusives from last year. Bloodborne is still hard as nails, but its swifter style of combat is a world away from the slow, cautious pace of the Souls games. Yet, having just spent three hours with Dark Souls III, it's clear that Miyazaki's latest creation is a more subtle blend of both franchises, as even its heavily-armoured knights felt surprisingly spritely in my hands on demo. With just over a month to go before the game's release, here's everything we know so far about Dark Souls III, including my own hands on impressions.
Release date
Dark Souls III is being released for PS4, Xbox One and PC on the 24th March in Japan, but those in Europe will have to wait until 12th April before they can get their hands on FromSoftware's latest Souls title.
Gameplay and hands on review
By the time I'd made my way to Dark Souls III's second boss for the tenth time in a row, my knight's clunking suit armour was operating like a slick, well-oiled machine. After rising from the safe confines of the bonfire on the high walls of Lothric's castle citadel, it was back down the stairs, a short drop through the rotting wooden floorboards (taking care, of course, not to take too big a chunk out of my precious health bar as I dodged the cloaked, knife-wielding skeletons lurking in the shadows), and then up and out over the ramparts, slipping straight past the possessed zombie pawing at a nearby tree growing out of a church roof and the rabid, undead warriors hoisting themselves over the crenelations beside me.
A short slide down a ladder would put me in the clear, but a cunningly placed archer directly behind me meant it was shields up as soon as I reached the bottom. Drawing me out of cover, I had to be quick in dispatching him, as he had another archer friend waiting off to the left. Getting rid of him was relatively simple, but it was the two swordsmen that would soon arrive over the walls I had to watch out for, as they proved surprisingly overpowering if I didn't take them out quickly enough. Then, it was another slide down a ladder, another flurry of sword jabs to take out the two lost souls awaiting me at the bottom, and then a quick sprint across a bloodied courtyard before the deadly mace of its large, rotund patrol guard found a home in my skull.
On the other side, the wall falls away to reveal a jaw-dropping cathedral tucked away inside a huge canyon of Gothic architecture. There's no time to look at that, though, as there's another archer on my immediate right about to lodge another flaming arrow in my elbow, so it's up the stairs, a slice of my sword, and then back down again to take out the reinforcements who have crawled out of the stonework.
Down below, the cloisters are patrolled by some pretty scary looking knights, but there's a sneaky shortcut you can take by dropping down onto a nearby balcony before plunging your sword into the dozing warrior directly below you. Then, if you're lucky, you can simply run past the two lumbering spear guards on the stairs and head on into the fog to meet your doom yet again at the hands of Vorght, a giant, frostbitten brute with a mean, face-breaking mace.
When viewed like this, the machinations of Dark Souls III start to become clear, for behind its brutally difficult façade lies a meticulously crafted RPG that's been deliberately designed to thwart players at every possible turn. It's about as old-school as modern games come these days, as it's as much about learning, memorising and then besting each enemy's individual attack patterns as it is about exploring every last nook and cranny of the wonderfully intricate world around you.
Admittedly, three hours is barely enough time to scrape the surface of Dark Souls III's Lothric, but even our relatively short jaunt from the safe confines of the game's starting area, the aptly named Cemetery of Ashes, to the outer walls of its Minas Tirith-like fortress was ample evidence that this is clearly FromSoftware's biggest and most ambitious Souls game yet.
As with previous games, every death has the potential to undo hours of work, as the souls you collect from fallen enemies also double up as experience points and your in-game currency. If you fail to make it back to the place you originally fell before retrieving your bag of souls, then they'll be lost forever, so you'll definitely need to adopt a slow and steady approach rather than barrelling in with your sword raised high. However, running back to your bonfire every time you take down a monster to heal up won't get you much further either, as enemies automatically respawn the moment you sit down and have a rest.
This is fine for grinding your way through a couple of levels if you're feeling overwhelmed, but eventually you'll need to press on, and it's here where Dark Souls III really shines. When everything's out to get you, you naturally become much more cautious in the way you play, as this renewed watchfulness makes you stop and evaluate every single move you make. You'll probably still spend a considerable amount of time getting your face kicked in, but when you come out of a heated scrap with a tooled up foe with just a sliver of hit points left, the sense of triumph and accomplishment you feel is unlike anything else.
It helps that combat is a bit swifter this time round, as enemies can now be dodged with sharper, more fluid evasive rolls, and back-stepping and heavy attacks don't take nearly as much time to execute as in Dark Souls II. There's also the new Ready Stance, which you can enter after launching certain types of attacks. If you have a longsword equipped, for example, you can execute a forward swipe that can break your opponent's guard, while great swords let you launch an enemy into the air with a charged upward slash.
Of course, even this won't be enough to appease less patient players, as even I was beginning to feel ground down after spending two hours dying repeatedly on the same stretch of game. As a result, Dark Souls III won't be for everyone – much like Bloodborne and all the previous games in the Souls series - but if today's more mainstream offerings just aren't challenging enough for you, then Souls III is almost certainly the best place to jump in and try putting your mettle to the test.
