Hell. Yeah.

Just announced in xbox's E3 conference

A crown? Does that mean continuity? Crowntinuity?

@fredchuckdave: Nothing about this seems like a good idea to me.

@raspharus: DSIII has its own page now.

but $$$$$ does eh?

@raspharus: You mean they want money? I'm sure they'd like some money.

I really don't want a continuation or link to the DSII stuff though. I wish they would do something different. I'd like it to stay true to the Demon's/Dark style and pace (no need for it to be like Bloodborne) but I definitely want a new environment and style.

Bamco is claiming this will be the final chapter of the series at least.

Dark Souls III taking place in the end times. Makes sense that they'd save the age of Dark for last, after every other plan has failed. Going the route of Roland from the Dark Tower cycle makes a lot of sense considering the themes of inevitability and decay that are prevalent throughout the series.

Colour me intrigued.

@hassun: I think the "final chapter" trilogy-ness of it confirms that it will link to DS1 and 2. Probably in the same passing, referential way. Hopefully they get away from the "go to place and get thing and then beat the four baddies" or the "beat the four baddies and then go to place and see guy".

Either way I'm excited for it.

Well the only thing that I dont like is the fact that it's too soon. Bloodborne was launched last year no? And already another souls game. Don't want them to go for the cashgrabbing COD-esque style.

@theblue: Yeah just looking at the trailer it's clear to see the links to DSII especially. It's just not something I want out of them.

So the whole thing about Scholar of the First Sin was that the "Chosen Undead" would try to break the cycle, to neither link the fire or embrace the dark. If that's the set-up for this game, it could be an interesting change. I'd prefer that over, "This is how we got from Dark Souls to Dark Souls 2", because that's just another cycle, right?

@raspharus: I don't think people who don't have a PS4 to play Bloodborne feel the same way. Besides, Bloodborne is its own separate thing, From clearly had had this trilogy thing in mind for a while. If we see Bloodborne 2 in 2017 and Dark Souls 4 in 2018, yeah, maybe the COD cashgrab thing has some legitimacy.

Exactly. Or rather, it launched THIS year. I'm still exhausted from finishing Bloodborne and figured I had a couple years to catch up on the older games... I'd love to play this eventually but probably won't be buying it at launch. These games need more room to breathe, don't they?

@l33t_haxor: Yes indeed. Look at bioshock or The witcher for instance. There's a good 2/2.5 years distance between the games.

It seems a bit too early, Dark Souls 2 came out just last year and Bloodborne came out this year. I think they are speeding along waaaaay too fast here. Dark Souls 3 might be awesome, but I feel like they could miss out on adding some great features or something. I guess waiting is the best option here.

As someone that has a plat for Demon's Souls up to Bloodborne, I feel no excitement. I've always felt the Souls games should NEVER have a number after them, and I still feel that way. Maybe I'll be excited when we see a non-cg trailer and some gameplay.

I think they might show some gameplay footage tomorrow (day 2) on the gamespot live show. The schedule includes an 'unannounced Namco title', and as far as I know they haven't announced any DBZ game.

With Dark Souls II being basically Dark Souls 1.5, let's hope this does not end up being Dark Souls 1.8

I feel like after 4 Souls games the excuses having been made for the series will no longer fly. Due to the nature of the combat, every next game is drastically easier to pick up. I'm gonna say DS3 will be the point where 'just being the next one of these' will no longer be challenging or interesting enough.

I think the series should also really step up its storytelling game, which so far has been nonexistent. The game has no plot, only lore. And while the lore is amazing, I really would like to see something that resembles a story that you are a part of.

I would rather not. I think they should explore and experiment with the environmental storytelling, that's what they're good at, and that's what makes them different. And it would be very hard to make a cohesive, intriguing plot using that narrative structure.

I would like to see them try something new at least. Demon's Souls was something extremely fresh and original, but I feel like after Darks Souls and its sequel all of the originality has been capitalized on enough already. Calculated combat, consequential deaths, the grand scope of the level design, the feeling of loneliness, the immersive multiplayer, the mysterious world and lore. It's all been amazing, but it's been amazing for 3 (4) games now.

If not a full-fledged campaign-like story, I at least want them to try something different, and make the world feel more comprehensible. Because if you can beat a game without knowing what the hell is and has been going on in this mysterious world - it stops being mysterious and is just illegible. And after multiple iterations this ceases to be 'hardcore' and is simply bad game design.

Hmm, don't agree that it is bad game design just because it has happened multiple times. Souls is what Souls is, and it do what it do. All cryptic, incomprehensible and nuts. It's what makes these games stand out. But yeah, I agree that they should try something new while staying true to what Dark Souls is about. I'm feeling hopeful since Miyazaki is at the helm again. Still, the magic is gone. And I think we have to accept that.

As many have said before me- the first Souls game you've played will always be the best one, because you weren't familiar with the series. It was exciting, dangerous, exhilarating, mysterious and just fantastical. They can't change what the game is. And once you've played one, you kinda know what there is to know about the series. The magic is gone.

Definitely agree with you there. For me the minimal requirement would to make the sporadic hints more... memorable? When the silly wizard dude with a claw for a face or whatever says something about 'the fair princess cast in a wooden tower long forgotten' I actually want to remember it once I find the wooden tower. I think the whole trivia/word of mouth style of delivering background information for the lore is a really cool idea, but imo the Souls games haven't really been doing a very good job of making me go 'oh yeah, that guy mentioned something about this, that's kinda cool'. I have to go to the wiki to even remember half of the stuff that I have been told, decipher the other half, and read about the third half that I never stumbled upon.

Don't care about the story, I just hope they stet back some of the dumb gameplay changes they have made in the last two games.

-More build diversity

-Bring back automatically replenishing Estus

-Fix multiplayer (bring back invasions at any time and pvp arenas, let me decide who to summon for coop, how many people to summon and where to summon them)

-More covenants

-Do not make make fast travel back to a hub to level up and/or respawn enemies. Let me do it by resting at a bonfire.

If they don't at least do the first 3 of those, I'm not interested.

I bet you have to kill that big fire guy.

Less bosses. Make each boss significant like it was in DS1.

Better world. Lordran felt connected in a way that made sense and exploration was exciting. DSII was sporadic and felt linear in the way you rushed from boss to boss.

huh and nothing was shown at Sony just thought about this. tighten the movement and animation, going back and playing Ds2 after bloodborne was a face punch to my senses oh and no more hub please if you don't mind.

VanOrd with some details about the game on his twitter feed.

I am hyped, after playing Bloodborne I found that I liked the slower paced combat of Dark Souls more.

I'll take these games as fast as they can give them to me.

I was a little weary at first when the DSIII leaks came out. I was like, "already, ANOTHER Souls game?". But, it really does follow the pattern of releases they've kept to since Demon's Souls. It's just thrown into a bit of a flux because of Bloodborne being released in between DSII and DSIII. But, the more real info I hear about this game, the more excited I get. Ties directly back into Dark Souls! Inter-connected levels (admittedly I wasn't one waving the "Dark Souls II sucks because the levels don't fold over five times on themselves" flag. I like the structure of both games just fine)! Quality over quantity as far as the size of the world! Miyazaki back at the helm! It all sounds amazing so far. I think I'm already more excited about DSIII than I was about Bloodborne at least, but probably even moreso than I was about DSII.

I found the bradcast a bit uninformative, but Kevin Van Ord's write up is solid.

@fredchuckdave: I really liked his write-up a lot.

Good article. I'm not going to assume DSIII is going to be rushed, fatigue-inducing, and/or underwhelming until someone makes a bad Souls game, which hasn't come close to happening yet. Those who are already viewing the game through that lens are setting themselves up to have a worse experience than they perhaps could.

@fredchuckdave: yeah, Van Ord does some great work over there, and I know from past articles that he knows what he's talking about with this series.

To be fair, I've slowly come to realization that gbomb really doesn't have Souls staff expert so I can't fault brad's discussion. They seem to have a bunch of guys that enjoy it enough to play 2-3 of the games but I don't know if anyone on the entire staff has even finished all 4 games. Maybe Jason? Can't recall whether he's mentioned his experience with Demons before. I know that Brad hasn't ever beaten DS1 or 2 so we shouldnt expect him to be all up on his DS lore and/mechanics. Austin does seem pretty into it so maybe he'll take up that role but he didn't seem to grasp the obvious Gwynn reference so perhaps not. In any case, I don't think the job lends itself to allowing any one person to put in the time required to be a souls expert anyway.

@hassun said:

I'll be excited for the next Souls game until the Souls game I hope for each time actually comes out. Demon's was great, but I thought Dark Souls was a legitimate improvement. Except, even if Dark Souls was great, the P2P connections were terrible and meant more waiting than playing. Dark Souls 2 was great, but Soul Memory was a terrible system. Bloodborne probably has the best PVE in the series, but by far the worst PVP.

Actually, now that the Agape Ring in Scholar has turned Soul Memory into something interesting, and one of the arenas uses SM while the other uses SL, maybe the game I wanted is already here. DkS2 may be the worst game in the series, but SOTFS may be the best game in the series. How does that even make sense? IDK, but that's the way it is for me.

Honestly so long as we get our hidden paths, crazy items and what not I'll be happt

The formula has gotten old for me. Since it's no longer exciting and new, I now tend to focus more on the things that bother me and I often think about how the games could be improved. FromSoftware appears to have no interest in changing the formula. To be honest, I've been thinking more about RPGs and it has occurred to me that I don't like RPG design. I like the Souls games more for the action and adventure.

What do you guys think about the new trailer from Gamescom? Hard to take that much out of such a short gameplay segment, but I did notice:

• The environments almost look more like Bloodborne than Dark Souls to me. That was disappointing. I mean that cathedral especially looks practically ripped right out of Bloodborne.
• Those rolls look FAST and the animation looks more DS1 than DS2 to me.

The bow + sword combo looks pretty cool. I hope they go all the way with duel wielding and let you use everything together.

The environments and boss designs are making me really happy so far. My biggest complaint about DS2 was that none of the bosses really wowed me in the same way that DS1 did. I never had that "oh shit" moment in DS2 as a boss appeared. Stuff like Gaping Dragon, Quelaag, Manus, Capra Demon, etc. in DS1 all had a visual impact that I just didn't feel in the sequel. The animation and speed looks nice. It's hard to say for sure til I play it. I like that weapons have stances. That should be sufficient enough for it to feel different to me.

@49th: two bows :yes:

At this point I'm way more interested in seeing if they'll address any of the issues these games have continuously suffered from - mainly bad camera and lock-on / poor framerate.

A game that has a dark souls / bloodborne-ish world design with the build variety and pvp from two (hopefully not as prone to lag) would be perfect to me. This game so far seems like it'll be that, can't wait to see more.

Looking at the gameplay from Gamescom I have to say it looks very much like what has been done before. And that (in my opinion) is a bad thing. Seeing animations, weapons/items, enemies, AI routines and more that are exactly the same as the ones in previous games is disappointing.
I really hope they can get away from most if not all rehashing or at least subvert the player's expectations. It better not have more Solaire fanwankery either because god damn that left a really sour aftertaste in DSII.

Other than that I notice the Bloodborne influences but I'm really not a fan of the estus healing speed, which seems massive. I still hope they will one day

A) Make Estus the only healing item.
B) Make it heal slower (akin to lifegems in DSII).
C) Make the healing cancel on hit so you can't keep chugging to negate damage.

@hassun: I don't think you can complain about weapons and enemies yet considering this is clearly an early game area and a demo. The demo showed a dregling exploding into some giant snake monster thing and the executioner enemy had that AoE attack which was surprising to me at least.

But let's be realistic here, this game is going to have those same trappings. It's going to have those I-frames and instant heals, and a lot of the combat is pulled right from DS1 and Bloodborne because people whined when they changed those things in DS2. That's what the people want and it seems like they're taking that route. In all honesty, with how they seem to be going back to the instant animations and movement of DS1 and incorporating the complex level design, this might as well be the "actual" Dark Souls 2. And that's coming from someone who liked DS2.

I for one am looking forward to the new weapon mechanics and hoping the bosses are memorable and challenging. It looks great so far.

It's going to have that Pro Evo thing of not knowing what they've done to the game til its in my hands. It looks quicker but then you can never be sure what builds they're demoing with.

Watched the new gameplay videos, and it sure looks like just another Souls game. It starts in "Undead Burg"... again. It has a bridge dragon... again. Still watching the videos made me want to explore the world, so I guess it's working. As for new things there seems to be some kinda new limited "special move". There's a charge counter in the upper left corner I noticed went down when he did a specific attack, but I didn't notice how he got more charges.

Watching the videos made me wonder what's going on with the Bloodborne DLC though. It's supposedly coming out this fall yet we haven't heard anything more about it ? And now we have this coming out early in 2016 as well ?

What were the complaints Dark Souls 2 received regarding the combat? Is it just that the animations were longer?

@theblue: I can only judge what I've seen so far. It's unfinished, things can always change and I just hope they actually do.

I wasn't talking about i-frames or combat mechanics in general either (other than the estus proposal which I don't even expect them to use). I have no problem with the gameplay being similar to previous Souls games. I do have a potential problem with seeing yet another dragon breathing fire on a bridge or the enemies behaving exactly the same as before. Unless of course they can subvert those expectations and put a twist on those familiar mechanics and enemies. E.g. It looks like the Sunlight covenant is in DSIII, but what if this time they were actually a villainous covenant based around the Solaire's bad ending in DaS? Or what if the dragon on the bridge required a completely new strategy to vanquish? What if the only way to stop the dragon would be to align yourself with the dragon covenant? Etc.

Those are my hopes for a new Dark Souls. Don't retread the same paths. Don't make another "more is more" sequel. Don't make it "more like DeS" or "more like DaS" or "more like Bloodborne". It's about learning the lessons they have learnt from those games and creating something new with it.

P.S. Complaining just because something is different which is a silly thing to complain about. The actual question is: Is it good or not? -and in this case- Is it better or worse than what we had before? And of course that is where DSII failed in many ways.