“Our reaction that was; our thinking behind how we designed the game itself hasn’t changed, just how we falsely communicated it. But I hope we can continue to communicate to players that the game won’t be easier at all, and it’ll be as challenging or even more. We wanted to make sure we deliver the full, pure Dark Souls elements more directly to players.
“It’s hard to quantify how much harder it is. The challenges are still there, but just enough for me to be able to play the game, over come the barriers and difficulties in the game, and still have that sense of achievement when the difficulties are conquered. We are still balancing the game to a point where it’s conquerable but not to easy and not too difficult. We’re still doing a lot of trial and error, but I don’t think any players will be upset by how we’ve balanced the game. I think we will be able to meet the expectations of fans – both hardcore and new.”
After checking out forums and sites in my quest to beat the original Dark Souls it became clear to me that completing the quest is often worn like a badge of honour. Doing it once isn’t enough for some players however, and to those players Miyazoe happily confirmed that From Software is trying to revisit the way New Game+ works in Dark Souls 2. The feature is also a question of balancing, but seasoned players can rest assured that it’s currently in the works.
The world of Dark Souls 2 itself will require a greater degree of balancing than ever before, considering the play of light and dark, as well as new traps just waiting to slaughter careless adventurers rushing into areas blindly. We’ve already seen a rather terrifying rope bridge being torn out from under players by dragons, and pitch black areas that can only be illuminated by swapping out your shield for a torch. The dilemma of sacrificing your primary means of defence for visibility is both fiendish and inspired in equal measure.