We’ve known that From Software’s return to the Dark Souls world, Dark Souls III, would be coming in March 2016 in Japan, but we’ve not had an international release date until today’s new gameplay trailer from PSX – April 12.
So “Embrace the Darkness” is kind of a let down as far as Dark Souls III taglines go, right? I mean, c’mon, Dark Souls 2 – for however mixed the response to that game was among Souls fans – outright told you to “Prepare to Die.” That’s kind of the best possible attitude for the series to take.
Anyway, we finally have a release date for Dark Souls III outside of Japan – April 12, just a few weeks following the Japanese release on March 24. This comes from. Dark Souls III’s new gameplay trailer, launched this morning straight out of PSX in San Francisco, seen above. There is also an uncut, 4 minute gameplay sequence up from the same event below.
The tone appears consistent with the previous games in the series; decay, destruction, the collapse of a dying civilization. Those falling spears look downright cruel from a gameplay perspective, and the combat reminds me a lot more of Bloodborne’s smoother motions than the tanky combat of previous Dark Souls games.
Perhaps part of that comes from Dark Souls III being series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki’s return to the series, following his stint directing Bloodborne for Sony. A different creative team, Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, directed Dark Souls II. Miyazaki has previously promised that Dark Souls III represents a turning point for the franchise, making any changes to the series formula – whether they have their origins in Bloodborne or not – very interesting. However, without a look at the game’s heads up display, it is difficult to get a hang of how much has changed without playing it ourselves.
Dark Souls III will be available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
