The Demon’s Souls remake has been announced as one of the headline launch titles for the PlayStation 5. The original game first released in 2009 and is considered the founding example of the popular Souls-like genre. After all, it was Demon’s Souls that first bore the Souls name and prototyped the genre’s punishing difficulty.
However, although it spawned an impressive legacy, Demon’s Souls didn’t have an easy development. In fact, there were times when it seemed uncertain if the game would even reach western audiences. Looking back, the legacy of Demon’s Souls is not only an incredible series of games, but also one of the biggest mistakes that Sony ever made in publishing. A mistake that it is now correcting, as the game’s long-awaited remake is given headline status on the PS5.
Demon’s Souls’ developmental difficulties came from its unique nature, as developers From Software struggled to stray true to its goal of releasing a game designed to be difficult. The trend at the time, as it remains today, was for games to offer a range of difficulty options. This allowed skilled players to challenge themselves, without frustrating others.
The radical concept of a game designed to be frustratingly difficult was not an easy one for publisher Sony. In fact, after Sony president Shuhei Yoshida failed to get past the starting area within two hours of play, he dubbed it “an unbelievably bad game.” This feeling, along with a negative reaction from the Japanese press, caused Sony to lose all faith in the game’s success.
Not long after its launch, the decision was made that Sony wouldn’t publish Demon’s Souls outside of Japan. In fact, it took over eight months until the title reached the rest of the world, courtesy of third-party publisher Atlus USA. But, as Demon’s Souls scored rave reviews among western critics, it became clear that Sony had made a major mistake.
Unfortunately for From Software, however, Sony still owned the IP for Demon’s Souls, making the developer unable to capitalize on the surprise success without approval. In the end, From Software designed a new game along the same lines and called it Dark Souls. While Demon’s Souls will always be remembered as the beginning of the Souls-like phenomenon, it was Dark Souls that propelled it into the limelight.
Sony’s failure to see the potential in Demon’s Souls cost it access to one of the most popular series of the past decade. It was a failure brought on by uncertainty, as well as a negative feeling among Sony’s employees. Now the company has a chance to correct that mistake, and it seems as if it intends to grasp that chance with both hands.
Back in 2009, Demon’s Souls was a risky, experimental product, certainly not the kind of game that Sony would consider as a launch title for a brand new console. Eleven years later, and the remake is exactly that, a headline title for the PlayStation 5. But that’s not all, it’s also one of the few PS5 exclusives to be announced so far.
The remake, which is developed by Bluepoint Games, a Texas-based studio that specializes in remakes and remasters, will launch on November 12. It will arrive alongside the PlayStation 5 launch in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. The PS5 will be coming to the rest of the world a week later on November 19, though its Chinese release date is yet to be revealed. As such, Sony seems reliant on not repeating the mistakes of the past.
Demon’s Souls will release on November 12 for the PS5.
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