Gamespot posted a capture from a FromSoftware livestream showing what looks like gameplay of the Thief class. I personally wish I haven't seen it, because I like the look of the area. Here's the video, if you're interested:

... and here are my observations:

• Aesthetically, the area reminds me a bit of the of starting area in Dark Souls, the Northern Undead Asylum, especially when it comes to the colour palette.
• I don't know Japanese, so I don't know if whoever's streaming explains the mechanics behind the side-step dodge, but you can see that it consumes mana. It could be tied to the "weapon arts" of the dagger showcased in the video. The side-step itself has a different animation than the one in Bloodborne. It looks even quicker than one in Bloodborne and covers a greater distance.
• Whoever was playing did a good job of making backstabs seem very easy to pull -- not that they were particularly hard to do in Dark Souls.
• Seeing the durability bar underneath the shield icon on the HUD makes me hope that shield durability plays a role in how you play or how you approach certain enemies and bosses.
• I like that bows seem to be given expanded attack animations, including a weapon art.
• And, I like the new sound effects.

So, what do you think?

I wish the sidestep were the regular dodge. I don't like that I have to use a specific weapon or build. I hate rolling. It looks stupid. Why did they have to go back to rolling after both Witcher 3 and Bloodborne implemented more sensible dodges?

Very excited for this - I don't mind specific animations being tied to weapon types. The fact it costs mana (and that the mana bar has returned) is a little weird? But we'll see how that works. Not sure how I feel about a separate estus flask to restore mana.

I actually think that tying special moves to weapons is awesome. It makes for more variety and an interesting "learning the weapon" aspect. It adds another layer to an already deep game. Love it!

I feel the same way. One of my favorite aspects of the Souls games is the weapons and their feel so more with that works for me. Things that make builds feel different are also a plus for me.

@ezekiel: It's hard to tell at this point if the side-step is exclusive to specific weapons or a weapon class. I'm hoping it's tied to your equip load.

@nickhead: Huh, I actually never considered how much having separate estus flasks affects the playstyle of pure caster builds. I remember reading a lot about you can basically destroy bosses in less than 30 seconds with the high-tier sorceries in Dark Souls II, so maybe this is meant to prevent that somehow?

@artisanbreadssaid:

I agree. Learning the nuance of each weapon is definitely one of the my favourite parts about these games. Here's hoping that the weapon arts end up being useful and not just a gimmick. I wonder if you'll be able to combo into or from a weapon arts attack.

@militantfreudian: It's the weapon art of the dagger, you can tell because it uses mana just like every other weapon art.

I like it, I'm curious to see if many other daggers share it or whether it's specific to the theifs dagger. I do notice the game does look quite a bit slower than the Network Test Beta and rolling doesn't seam to propel you as far either.

The bow was more interesting to me, it's far quicker and I can see it potentially being really annoying in PvP with poison arrows. Hoping the weapon art for the bow gets better animations though.

I didn't really see anything drastically different in terms of gameplay, supporting my previous fears that it's going to be more of the same - or since Souls players love memes so much, should I say.. More Souls 3! The enemies are still super dumb and the biggest difficulty will probably still come from overwhelming numbers and the lock-on/camera.

That said I was really impressed with the step up in the visuals. The textures have come a long way from the blurry mess they were in Dark Souls 1 and the slightly better blurry mess of Dark Souls 2, but those were older consoles so can't really fault them for that. The biggest test will be in how the framerate holds up and if the camera will completely spaz out, clipping into walls or models when fighting enemies two-three times your size.

I'm curious about this as well. My second playthrough of DS2 was as a spellcaster (because I'd never used any magic other than the occasional pyromancy in DS1) and by the time I got around to it, spells and miracles had been severely nerfed. While plinking at normal enemies from afar was still very easy and similar to using a bow, boss battles were not very easy.

I kinda like the idea of a shared mana bar plus mana-estus flasks versus number of casts for individual spells, because presumably it'll give you more options in any given situation. It will also let them adjust casting difficulty along more dimensions than just raw spell damage and number of casts.

As an unskilled video game player in general, I'm consistently surprised by this "difficult" series' ability to get me hyped for the next release.

I like that weapon arts seem to effectively complement or create entirely new playstyles for the standard souls gameplay. I'm all for anything that differentiates any given build and allows for more roleplaying. hopefully this means we'll see the best build variety in the series.

Interesting that they're keeping the mechanic of having to get more estus as you progress from DS2, it looks like. That wasn't my favourite mechanic, to be honest, but we'll see.

The title of this thread got my hopes up that maybe they were moving to the faster gameplay of Bloodborne, but alas, it's tied to a weapon AND a resource that I'm not sure I like the inlcusion of in and of itself; Weapon arts seem like a cool inclusion but limiting the amount you can use them to that extent makes them a lot less appealing. At least it's a bit more evidence for saying that Bloodborne is not a souls game, if anyone wants to dig that argument up again...

I dunno. It looks pretty, but I don't know how fun it looks.

@claybrez: Gamespot posted a video today showing the starting weapons' movesets and it seems like weapon arts repeat, even between weapon types, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It seems like they're supposed to provide a utility (e.g. guard break, hyper armour, quick-step) rather than just additional attacks.

@militantfreudian: GameSpot also has this boss fight up LINK - Spoiler Warning - Boss Fight

That entire 8 minute clip is like a highlight reel of everything that has always been bad about the Souls games, and how it continues to be bad in Dark Souls 3 with apparently no effort in improving it.

Your player model constantly clipping into the boss in a very unflattering way.

A huge boss with only one lock-on point in center mass.

A boss-jumping attack that when locked-on swivels your camera into the ground, clipping through geometry and making it generally difficult to know whats going on in a moment where you especially need to see.

Uninspired attack patterns.

Acid/poison AoE.

Bloodborne wasn't perfect but it was a refreshing change of pace for this, at one point, really innovative franchise. Now it looks like they're not even treading water, but are stuck in the same mud so deep that they can't even tell they're not moving forward. A worse possibility is that they know the camera is fucked and all these other issues that have been around since Demon's Souls, and just don't care enough to fix it.

If your engine can't handle large bosses because the camera will clip into geometry, then don't make big bosses. IF you do have big bosses, then don't give them only one lock-on point that funnels the players into only one attack vector. Don't put in helper mobs into boss fights if your engine doesn't handle fighting multiple enemies at the same time very well. Play to your games strengths, don't try to shoehorn things in that are clearly not working very well.

I swear, some videos make this look like a really good looking nextgen Souls game while others make it seem like a janky mess of a port. If the load times will be huge and the framerate all over the place then it'll be pretty obvious From Software either doesn't give a damn or are simply incapable of making a better quality product, and likewise don't care about shipping it in that state.

@humanity: well for better or worse the Japanese can find out for us early on the PS4.

@skullpanda1: Like I don't mean for anyone to get the wrong idea - I really like all these games. I will most probably buy DS3 on release day and for the most part enjoy it. At the same time, these same issues cropping up game after game is maddening.

@humanity: That was indeed unflattering. The clipping wasn't that bad in previous games, was it?

In my opinion, the camera was one of the most annoying issues in the previous games, and I still don't buy into the argument that you have learn when to lock-on and when not to. Fighting the camera, in addition to the boss, just seems like extra work that you shouldn't be doing. It's odd that the distance between the player and camera is not fixed -- isn't that how almost every game does it? I agree with you that large bosses and multiple-opponent boss fights are generally not one of these games' strong suits.

I don't know if being able to lock-on to other parts would've made that boss fight any better. Less than halfway through the video, my annoyance with the camera seemed secondary to how poorly that boss fight is designed. Bosses aided by generic mob is one of my least favorite tropes in boss fights. I'm not trying to write this off as a non-issue, but I suppose boss fights in almost every game are generally a hit-or-miss.

It's the same engine. I'll live with it.