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Dark Souls sells 1.19 million copies across North America and Europe
One man's pain is another's pleasure. Never has this been more true than in the case of Dark Souls, as the sadistically difficult RPG continues a slow creep toward two million sales. As part of today's Namco Bandai financials, the company revealed sales in the United States and Europe reached 1.19 million copies.Publishing in Japan was handled by From Software, which revealed last November that the game had shipped 370,000 units in the region.Having punished console players within an inch of their sanity, Namco Bandai will launch Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition on PC August 24.
Dark Souls for PC announced, masochism begins August 24
The long, perilous journey through months of sinister rumors about Dark Souls trekking to PC is finally at an end. Namco Bandai announced today that internet petitions do have some validity, and that Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition will launch on PC August 24.Prepare to Die Edition will feature new bosses, and beyond that PC players should be prepared to face a relentlessly difficult (but satisfying) experience.%Gallery-152982%
Rumor: It still looks like Dark Souls is coming to PC
After a long, difficult and treacherous battle, it appears Dark Souls may finally be coming to PC. Congratulations, warriors -- your petitions may have once again vanquished the initial convictions of yet another development studio.Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is set to launch in August, a story in German magazine PC Action says (as found by NeoGAF user Anarkin and confirmed by us). Prepare to Die will feature new bosses, but everything else will be a direct translation of the PS3 and Xbox 360 title, according to Anarkin's report from the cover of PC Action.Publisher Namco Bandai has previously hinted at a PC version of Dark Souls, if it appeared enough fans would play (buy) it.
Rumor: Dark Souls PC announcement imminent
Head over to the official Dark Souls Facebook page, and you may discover a new "app" that says "an announcement is coming." The app is nothing more than a brick wall, which will seemingly be broken down once it reaches enough likes. While we'd like to think the wall hides a stack of delicious, fluffy pancakes, evidence points to the impending announcement of a PC version.And, by evidence, we mean the Australian magazine PC PowerPlay, which strongly suggests Dark Souls will be featured in its April issue. An image of the magazine has popped up on NeoGAF, revealing a page styled after Dark Souls' infamous "YOU DIED" screen. The magazine is due on shelves April 18, so we should likely know exactly what's going on by then.The possibility of a PC version of Dark Souls cropped up earlier this year when a Namco Bandai forum admin suggested users make a petition for the project. A week later, Namco took notice of the petition, with the admin telling users they had the company's attention and that "the future is in your hands."
Namco Bandai takes note of Dark Souls PC petition
We never thought we'd say this, but here goes: someone noticed an online petition. Namco Bandai threw down the gauntlet, tasking a masochistic PC audience with drumming up signatures for a potential PC port of Dark Souls. Over 64,000 of them responded. Namco Bandai community manager Tony Shoupinou dropped into the forums to say that his bosses approached him after the news broke. "If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it," he wrote in a post. "The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this. I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant people in Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort." It's hardly confirmation that a port is incoming, but at least you've gotten Namco-Bandai's attention -- and knowing is half the battle.
Dark Souls admin suggests PC could happen with a petition
Petitions come and petitions go, but when an employee of Namco Bandai suggests Dark Souls could get ported to PC with a few thousand signatures, we take notice. Administrator shoupinou responded to a request for a PC version of Dark Souls with the following advice: "There is always possibilities to have games adapted on PC and the good news is that Dark Souls is not a 100% typical Console game so the adaptation is possible. Now to make things happen, let's say the demand has to be properly done. someone to make a successful petition?" There is a petition gathering steam as we speak -- 36,668 signatures as of this writing -- and if you're a PC or Dark Souls fan, we don't see any danger in adding your own to the fight. Unless the CIA is using it to compile a list of suspected terrorists or something.
Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Dark Souls
It's a crying shame that, for the uninitiated masses, Dark Souls will primarily be remembered for its considerable difficulty. It's an absolutely true shame, of course. To my recollection, no other game's punishment caused my brother to literally break a controller in a fit of rage, delete his save and write a chart-topping tribute song before his hatred could subside. It's not all death and discouragement, however. Though every twist and turn of Dark Souls' menacing and lovely locales plays host to a preset lineup of fiends (many of whom can kill you with a sideways glance), there is a strange progress to the proceedings. It may come after hours of un-progress, but it comes -- and when it does, it comes correct. Self-improvement in games typically comes in forms that are mechanical (you level up and gain five magic points!) or educational (now you know where the spike traps are). Dark Souls' core tenet of repetitious short-burst failure paired with a wildly open-ended RPG character progression system blends both methods perfectly. What's more, it offers an intensely terrifying risk/reward system for ever-precious Souls; fortunately, your Brains are never jeopardized.
Dark Souls patch brings lots of tweaks, plenty of nerfs
Were you able to skirt around the considerable difficulty of Dark Souls by finding potent tactical combinations, like casting Iron Flesh and Homing Soulmass in tandem to turn yourself into an invincible, automatic killing machine? Well, you can't do that anymore: Dark Souls patch 1.05 was recently released, adding a handful of new features, tweaking a few abilities and outright nerfing some spells, including the two mentioned above. The update is the same as the Japanese patch that went live some time ago. You can check out a full list of translated patch notes over on Eurogamer. Many condolences for the imminent death(s) of your poor, poor hero.
Dark Souls ships 1.5 million worldwide
Namco Bandai is expanding its captive audience for Dark Souls, the grim action-RPG that critics and fans like, loathe and then love. According to developer From Software in Japan, 1.5 million vectors for its brutal challenge have shipped to stores worldwide. North America has received the largest Stockholm Syndrome shipment of 620,000 units, followed by Europe with 470,000 and then Japan (370,000), where Dark Souls was published by From exclusively on PlayStation 3. The game's gauntlet landed in Asia last on October 18th, shipping 40,000 copies to that region. We'll be keeping an eye out for Dark Souls' commercial performance in North America once the NPD releases the next round of statistics. How effective is word of mouth, we wonder, when it's whispered seductively through prison bars?
Dark Souls speed run is a tour de force of tolerance
Generally speaking, speed runs fall into one of two categories: "That's completely nuts" and "I should feel bad for ever trying to play this game." Most speed runs can be classified as the former; incredible displays of memorization and timing that reduce hour-long sequences into minutes. They're fun to watch, and sometimes even educational. Speed runs like SexyShoiko's Dark Souls play-through, however, make us ashamed of the countless hours we've painstakingly bled into this unforgiving beast of a game. Over a series of seven YouTube videos (part 1 above, 2 through 7 after the break) SexyShoiko manages to topple the entire title in less than an hour and a half, which is completely bewildering. We'd call him/her a masochist, but that term seems inapplicable to someone who is quite clearly the master of their own domain. [Thanks, everyone who sent this in!]
Dark Souls collector's edition running into retailer issues
After some were upset that Namco Bandai changed the contents of the Dark Souls collector's edition, now it looks like many fans won't be getting the collector's edition at all. Co-optimus reports that online retailer Newegg didn't receive any copies of the collector's edition at all, while it appears that Best Buy's supply isn't enough to satisfy all pre-orders. To rectify the situation, Newegg will be offering $20 gift cards to all those who pre-ordered the game, while Best Buy will offer $20 cards for anyone who doesn't receive their collector's edition as expected. Kind of a bummer, to be sure, but as Co-optimus points out, twenty bucks is almost enough to buy the full, printed Dark Souls guide, which features more content than the digital mini-guide included with the collector's edition. The art book, however, can't be replaced, which is unfortunate because there really are some spectacular designs in the game.
Dark Souls director details the monsters that will be killing you
The many creatures of Dark Souls all feature some lovely design elements, though their predilection for constantly killing you might prevent you from appreciating their more artistic qualities. Thankfully, PlayStation Blog has gathered up several of the different monster designs, accompanying them with commentary from Dark Souls' director Hidetaka Miyazaki. The headless, one-legged horror pictured above is a Titanite Demon, which Miyazaki noted was "the product of a lot of brainstorming when we weren't able to narrow down the theme," adding that, "from the game perspective, we needed 'an ore demon that forges weapons', and he was ultimately selected for that role." Miyazaki clearly forgot the demon's defining feature, namely that he's a dirty butthole and we hate him.
Dark Souls collector's edition contents (slightly) altered
When we received our review copy of Dark Souls, we noticed the collector's edition contents weren't exactly as they were described back in May. Don't worry, if you pre-ordered Dark Souls in North America, you're still getting all the same bonus content, albeit in a different format. The package still comes in a metal tin and features a copy of the game and a hardbound art book. What's changed, however, is that the mini strategy guide, behind-the-scenes videos and original soundtrack are no longer included on physical media, but are instead via a download token. Meanwhile, the UK version is a little different as well. It turns out the UK version does include the soundtrack and behind-the-scenes videos on physical discs, both of which reside in pockets in the art book's cover. Not included with the UK version, however, is the metal tin. Hopefully, that clears things up. Not that it's going to matter much after the Capra Demon kills you for the millionth effing time.
Dark Souls review: Brick walls and pancakes
I imagine a large, imposing brick wall. Upon closer inspection I notice that, while the wall is solid, it's not impenetrable. Upon even closer inspection, I detect the faintest whiff of something delicious. Resolute to claim whatever lay on the other side, I set about smashing into the wall. After hours of chipping away, the wall tumbles down. On the other side, a perfect stack of mouth-wateringly fluffy pancakes. Immediately beyond the pancakes, another brick wall and, again, an intoxicating aroma emanating from within. The cycle of Dark Souls is essentially the same: Hours of diligent, often frustrating work followed by a surprising, often spectacular payoff. I just hope you really love pancakes. %Gallery-123367%
Dark Souls prays for you in 'All Saints Day' trailer
What we're appreciating most about Dark Souls' marketing campaign is how it repeatedly warns about the game's difficulty. It's not gonna be a "how hard could it be?" situation like Demon's Souls. Nope, the cards are on the table.
Rumor: Dark Souls players punished for playing early
According to Japanese gaming blog Esuteru, folks who managed to grab illicit, pre-launch copies of Dark Souls are being punished by developer From Software. The site says that members of the dev team are dropping horrifically overpowered, maximum level Black Phantoms into the environments of players who grabbed their copy of the game through a retailer that broke street date. We're having a hard time corroborating the story, but it certainly sounds like something which the characteristically cruel From Software would do. In fact, we'd be surprised if those players even picked up on the retribution. They probably assumed their constant, repeated defeat was just par for the course.
How the world of Dark Souls got so dark
Namco Bandai has broken up Dark Souls' prologue into chunks, we're guessing, because taken all at once it would be too much drama. In this excerpt, we see a war between impressive, powerful beings -- which helps to explain why the game world becomes so inhospitable to regular knight types later.
From Software profiled in latest Dark Souls vid
What's missing from this profile of From Software, developer of Dark Souls, is that we figured the studio culture would involve randomly unplugging equipment to redo hours of work. You know, get the team in touch with Demon's Souls players.
Dark Souls continues the prologue in ghastly poetic verse
Continuing the series of prologue videos for Dark Souls is today's extra creepy, lyrical reading of Part 2. It seems that at least one more entry awaits, wherein all will be explained (presumably). We'll start steadying our shields now in anticipation.
Dark Souls prologue is kind of depressing
Demon's Souls is a depressing game, not only because of its occasionally crushing difficulty, but because it's always just so damned grim. Based on this new prologue video, it appears Dark Souls intends to keep up the trend. It's hard to imagine it being much darker but, hey, this is only part one.
