From Software - Another Dark Souls Sequel?

Hardcoregame has news that From Software has trademarked a new Souls game.

Bandai Namco has recently filed trademark for the title “Soldiers’ Soul” in Europe. Unfortunately, this represents the entirety of what we know about the project at the time, as the trademark gives little other information other than it is a video game and will exist at some point in the future.

More information.

I seriously need to play both games and finally finish them.

Talk about milking the cow. They're just progressively diluting the game's quality and it shows. Demon's Souls remains by far the best.

Originally Posted by Humanity has risen!
Demon's Souls remains by far the best.

In your opinion.

My opinion is that Dark Souls is a class above the original.

By all means - let's have more, but at least add a compelling narrative and make exploration more interesting.

I think that until FROM keeps struggling to understand what exactly made DeS and DaS 1 such a cult hit, they will keep missing their mark as they did in DaS 2. That said, even the sequel is a lot of fun and tons of content, even if their storytelling turned from 'go-after-yourself-and-find-out-yourself' to 'write-mysterious-stuff-that-makes-no-sense-when-put-together'.

Oh and please return to the original world design (ie where it's one continuous map), and none of the shenanigans we have in the sequel.

Originally Posted by Soulbane
missing their mark as they did in DaS 2

As someone who considers Dark Souls 2 in its current state (DLCs + Scholar update) to be quite easily the best game in the series I don´t think they´ve missed much .

Compared to the predecessor, the game doesn´t feature an equivalent of the cool world layout loop found in DS1´s first half (which I think can hardly be called a negative in and of itself), there are few awkward area transitions and the bosses are overall perhaps not as imaginative art direction-wise, but that´s about it in my book.
The game´s other flaws are present in the predecessor(s) as well.

In everything else I consider the game to be mostly better than DS1, or at least on par with.

Combat experience DS2 provides is easily superior to predecessor´s due to numerous general mechanical improvements (8-way rolling when locked-on, slower healing, more flexibility and variety when it comes to rings, or changes to stamina management, parrying and backstabbing), more varied offensive arsenal (spellcasting in particular, but also stuff like powerstancing or more weapons with special properties), much better item balance, better thought out encounter design in general (including NPC invaders, particularly in the last two DLCs) and bosses being mechanically a lot more sound overall (the game is almost free of gimmick-y bosses as featured in Demon´s Souls and mechanically awkward bosses like Bed of Chaos, hydras or Capra Demon in DS1).

The game´s exploration aspect is at least just as excellent as it was in DS1 - the cool loop is missing, but I think the game makes up for it with more varied environments, more varied environmental challenges and interactivity (including possibilities to affect boss fights or, thankfully, excluding narrow ledges stuff found in DS1) and the DLCs add three huge areas easily on par with the absolute best in DS1 level design-wise.
In terms of overall possible progression the game is at least as non-linear as DS1 (all areas accessible from Majula can be unlocked really early, the DLCs add more options to the game´s second half, bonfire warping allows for more general jumping around) and while the game doesn´t feature well hidden secrets as big as Ash Lake and Painted World, the levels are still filled with crapton of rewards for more inquisitive players, including a covenant with a questline and a boss at its end.

The online aspect was already the best in the series, mainly due to combat improvements, and the only notable drawback besides an occasional lag - soul memory utilization - got largely solved in the latest update.

When it comes to story aspects, while fairly minor in terms of scope and additional playtime, the Scholar update massively improved the game´s resolution and in general provided just enough clarifications of some of the game´s unnecessarily vague story/backstory aspects to realize the game´s main narrative in the shape I find more compelling than in DS1.
I still think DS1 was slightly more successful in how it weaved its story bits into exploration, but while I had a lot of fun "digging" and trying to put things together, I´ve never found the actual core narrative all that interesting, whereas I´ve found DS2´s core narrative and themes in their current shapes to be quite engaging and even emotionally resonant.

Finally, I really dig the game´s current "qualitative" structure - the earlier parts (the first 2/5 or so) consist of a big amount of mostly small-to-mid sized areas which at times come with mundane art direction, but offer a great degree of progression freedom and a lot of environmental variety, whereas the latter parts consist of vanilla mostly linear progression through the sequence of areas where the art direction is generally turned up a notch and story aspect is more prominent, and of the DLCs which feature the three biggest areas in the game (I´d say each roughly on par with one Demon´s Souls world) where the game hits it pretty much on all cylinders from level design, to art direction, to encounter design.

In comparison, DS1 provides a fantastic early experience with Undead Burg/Parish, continues to be great thanks to the layout loop constituted by Burg´s adjacent areas, the trek for the lordvessel and multiple hidden areas, but most of what constitutes its latter parts is not of the same quality - the DLC is all about bosses since the level&encounter design is run-of-the-mill and the treks for 3 of 4 lord souls feature mostly uninspired level&encounter design too, but without the benefit of any good bosses to speak of or the earlier game´s interconnectedness.

Direct, though somewhat simplified, comparison according to my preferences would be DS2 DLCs > DS1 pre-vessel ≥ vanilla DS2 > DS1 post-vessel.
Considering the amount of content the DLCs provide and generally more consistently solid vanilla experience I definitely prefer DS2 when it comes to how its great and not-so-great (art direction of some of the earlier areas, linearity of vanilla late game) parts are distributed. Along with tighter minute-to-minute gameplay or more diverse character building possibilities it´s also the chief reason why I´ve found DS2 to fare much better on the replayability front since it´s always nice (and rare) being able to look forward to a late game as a highlight of a playthrough.

As far as I´m concerned they´re free to continue "missing their mark" .

As for the Soldiers´ Soul, sounds more like a spin-off to me.

I didn't play Demon Souls, but I loved Dark Souls. I quite enjoyed Dark Souls 2 as well, and definitely got value for money for my 50 hrs of gaming, but it just didn't grab me in the same way. I think it was partly because it didn't have the cool loop DeepO mentions, which was ace, but the sense of exploration just wasn't as strong for me. I found the hub in DS2 a bit dull. As I said, it was still a good game and I had fun with it, but after a while I just drifted away from it and never beat it.

I'm always ready for more Souls.

If you started liking these games with Dark Souls and Youtubers/Twitchers you're a poser. I imported the game from Asia in January 2009. It's because of a few people like me that the game was picked up by Atlus and that it became a sensation. I certainly didn't know then that Souls would one day stop being the apanage of a few erudite fans who liked King's Field, but that it would be co-opted by LARPers and Twitch hipsters of the worst kind.

Originally Posted by Humanity has risen!
If you started liking these games with Dark Souls and Youtubers/Twitchers you're a poser. I imported the game from Asia in January 2009. It's because of a few people like me that the game was picked up by Atlus and that it became a sensation. I certainly didn't know then that Souls would one day stop being the apanage of a few erudite fans who liked King's Field, but that it would be co-opted by LARPers and Twitch hipsters of the worst kind.

You are incredibly full of yourself.

Originally Posted by JDR13
You are incredibly full of yourself.

Don't you think that's a little harsh JDR13. he said a few people like him, he didn't take all the credit for himself.

Heh heh… true

Hey, I bought J-Demon's Souls before these games were hip too!

Since I didn't like it that much, I guess that means I'm personally responsible for it not being THAT popular