The current generation debut of Dark Souls II has just been announced with Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, which will come for PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 7th, and Game Director Yui Tanimura gave more details on the differences between the version on the new consoles and the old-gen one in an interview on Famitsu.
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">If the resolution increases, since the image quality improves, the amount of visual information also increases. The sense of discovery changes a little. You can see something in the distance and perceive the smaller details. You can say “this one looks nice, so it’s all good” or maybe feel that it’s an enemy (laughs).
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">The amount of information perceived by the eye in dark places also increases. I think the sense of immersion and realism becomes quite different. For instance the situation in which you’re surrounded by spiders in Brightstone Cove Tseldora changes quite a bit with the increased specs.
Tanimura mentioned that the difference goes beyond graphics, and those that already played the game can expect a fresh experience due to substantial gameplay changes:
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">The placement of NPC also tends to be influenced a lot by hardware restrictions. This time we’re reviwing the placement according to the high specs. For example we can do things as increasing the number and types of enemies or relax their movement restrictions. But we’re not just randomly increasing the numbers, we’re also changing their methods of attack. In addition to that, we’re rearranging the item allocation and part of the loot.
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">Even to those people that have already finished the game, we want it to feel fresh for them. This is close to what you’d call a “Director’s Cut” version.
Finally, he also commented about the multiplayer, even if he remained a but on the cryptic side:
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">We plan to provide more diverse situations that due to hardware restrictions we couldn’t achieve before. We’ll provide more information in the future.
It’ll be interesting to see just how improved the game will be. The current-gen version really comes at no real surprise, but how will it compare with From Software’s next unforgiving title Bloodborne? We’ll know in April.
