We hope you're ready to fight (and fail) your way through Boletaria once again, as the anticipated remake of Demon's Souls is set to launch alongside the PS5 console this month.
Slated for a mid-November launch – more details on that below – this game is something of a reimagining of the original Demon's Souls game, which first came out on PS3 in 2009.
If you played the original, you'll know that Demon's Souls is the first entry in FromSoftware's famous Souls series – so, from the studio that would go on to give us Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro and, at some point, Elden Ring.
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With this remake, however, it's important to note that FromSoftware doesn't appear to have had a hand in making it, and production has been handed over to Bluepoint Games, a studio which has previously remade Shadow of the Colossus (and many other games) to great success.
Demon's Souls remake was first announced in June during a special PlayStation broadcast event and revealed to be a launch title later in September. Here is everything we know about the Demon's Souls remake for PS5.
[Update: BluePoint has revealed the game's character creation screen. Find out more below...]
Cut to the chase
- What is it: A reimagining of Demon's Souls, originally a PS3 exclusive made by FromSoftware.
- When is it released: November 12.
- Which console will it be on: Demon's Souls will be a PS5 exclusive.
Demon's Souls release date and price
The Demon's Souls remake will be released as a PlayStation 5 launch title, and when you'll be able to play it depends on when the console is released in your country. If you're in the US and Australia you'll be able to play Demon's Souls from November 12 when the PS5 launches in those countries, while if you're in the UK you'll have to wait until the console arrives there on November 19.
There are a number of pre-order options available at the moment, some of which will put you $70 / £70 / AU$125 out of pocket, which does seem a little expensive for a remake of a game. As a next-gen title, though, it's not that surprising – and we expect the price will drop a little after launch.
Sony is also offering a deluxe edition of the game which comes with a bunch of additional items (most of which are Soul items) and some equipment.
Demon's Souls trailers and gameplay
The first trailer was shown on June 11 announcing the game was being made. In the trailer, we got a look at some sights all Demon's Souls veterans will find familiar.
There's the Tower Knight boss, the Shrine of Storms area and the Storm King, and, of course, Boletaria, which covers the first level you go through.
Everything shown in the first trailer was purely cinematic and if you've played Demon's Souls there wasn't anything out of the ordinary in there.
The second trailer was a five-minute-long look at gameplay for the first time, including combat.
We hear a character, the Maiden in Black, speaking her famous lines from the original game: "Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel. Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended." (Fans of the original will notice that the same voice actor is being used here, too.)
Then we get to the gameplay sequence, which shows us the tutorial area. Boletarian soldiers and Blue-eye Knights are aplenty and it must be said the graphics do look rather gorgeous.
Something about the animations and movement, however, does look off. It feels a bit weightless, perhaps, and doesn't scream the combat we all know and love from the original Demon's Souls. But it's hard to judge this until we're cleaving souls ourselves.
Check it out below and see for yourself:
Sony has recently released a brand-new Demon's Souls gameplay, and if you suffer from arachnophobia, you may want to look away now. The Armoured Spider gets dealt and we also get to see the Flamelurker boss, which manages to kill the player (obviously) and is bound to kill countless more players on November 12.
Demon's Souls character creation
Character creation has finally been shown off in BluePoint's Demon's Souls remake.
Until now, the only character we've seen in the promotional footage and trailers is an avatar with a helmet on, not letting us see the face beneath.
Us Demon's Souls veterans fondly remember the... somewhat hideous character creation introduced to us in the original PS3 version and it seems like BluePoint has made a half-decent character creation system.
As detailed in the PlayStation Blog, we get to change a lot of values here. There are preset characters which you can edit and also you can go through all the fields you might expect to see like gender, face, nose, hair, facial hair and something else called 'decals'. Overall, the character models look rather beautiful in these stills, but we hope this translates well into how your character looks when you're playing as well.
Fashion, of course, is a big part of the Souls games and we hope BluePoint recognises this in the remake. The only thing missing from these screens, of course, is your character's origin and starting class. We assume this is in another menu.
Based on some released images on the PS Blog, we can see there are four pages of preset characters to choose from and play around with to make your perfect avatar, even down to changing your character's teeth which is an interesting addition.
It looks like there's plenty of hair options to choose from which is nice and you can, of course, change the colour. BluePoint and Sony have said they are "incredibly excited to see the amazing heroes (including the weird and wonderful) you will imagine."
Further still, it wouldn't be a BluePoint remake without a photo mode and you might be pleased to know that one has been included in Demon's Souls remake.
Check out all the new images below:
Demon's Souls news, gameplay, story, combat and more
Demon's Souls will use the PS5's key features showing help videos and tips to stuck players
The remake of Demon's Souls on PlayStation 5 is going to make use of one of the console's key features - an activity bar and a library of help videos. Sony confirmed these videos and 'guides' would be part of the new PS5 user interface.
PS5 consoles will have guide videos which players can choose to watch if they need help with a game and Demon's Souls, which has a reputation for being particularly challenging, is going to have over 180 of these videos available for players to browse with ease.
Say you're stuck in the game and you were going to Google search for the answer on where to go, instead you can now head to the PS5 home and browse through videos which will explain how to get past certain sections.
The good news is that this function is entirely optional. Players won't have this addition foisted on them and it will be easily available to those who seek it out. Obviously, the Souls series has an overexaggerated reputation of being extremely, unfairly difficult.
If you've played the games you know they can be punishing, but they're seldom unfair in what they challenge you with, so there's a case to be made for these hints ruining the core challenging experience. With that in mind, it's certainly going to be beneficial for new players who have never touched a Souls game before.
Is FromSoftware involved in the remake?
The short answer is 'no'.
FromSoft doesn't seem to be involved at any point in the making of the Demon's Souls remake, but it would make sense if the studio gave some advice during production; if it did, this hasn't been confirmed.
As you well know, Demon's Souls was originally created by FromSoftware as a PlayStation 3 exclusive game in 2009. At numerous occasions, BluePoint Games has made a point to say it wants to respect the legacy of the original game and FromSoft's work, so we can expect that the difficulty remains unchanged.
Will there be any changes from the original?
It would be incredibly unlikely for Bluepoint to change anything about the gameplay, which is famous for being extremely difficult, but equally as rewarding and challenging.
From the trailer, we don't see a stamina bar, but it was most likely hidden during the segment. We do, however, see the core Souls mechanics in play: dodge rolling, blocking, parrying, repostes and backstabs.
It would stand to reason that the game wouldn't add any new elements to the combat, like being able to jump, for instance, or anything that changes the core gameplay from the original. Combat, as well, will remain challenging and at the moment there is no mention of a difficulty selection.
If you've played the original, you'll immediately notice the Maiden in Black from the trailer: she's the person you use to level up your stats using Souls, so it stands to reason this will be the same in the remake.
A blog post was shared by Bluepoint on the official PlayStation Blog detailing some of the processes it has gone through, which will hopefully put some minds at ease.
Bluepoint explains: "It was essential to us that we recreated Demon’s Souls in such a way that longtime fans are transported back to the Boletaria they love. Here, the original characters, encounters and battles are brought to life in greater fidelity, making the story even richer and darker."
The post continues: "Even as we went back to the drawing board to build upon the original art, sound, music, and feel, our goal was always to remain true to the vision of the original classic – its story, gameplay and level design."
The gameplay mechanics and ideas from the original game would go on to influence a lot of what we see in the Dark Souls games, and the legacy of FromSoft is something Bluepoint is clearly keen to honour in this remake.
We know that the weird system of World and Character Tendency is going to be in the remake, but it has been tweaked slightly to make it a bit easier to understand and should be explained in the game a lot clearer.
What is the story of Demon's Souls?
The game's official description reads: "In his quest for power, the 12th King of Boletaria, King Allant channelled the ancient Soul Arts, awakening a demon from the dawn of time itself, The Old One. With this, a colourless fog swept across the land, unleashing nightmarish creatures that hungered for human souls.
"As a lone warrior who has braved the fog, you must face the hardest of challenges to earn the title 'Slayer of Demons' and send The Old One back to its slumber."
There's a little more to it than all that, though... Suffice it to say, if you like Dark Souls and these types of medieval fantasy RPGs, then you'll not want to miss out on this.
Is Demon's Souls remake coming to PC?
Despite the initial confusion from the gameplay trailer, which erroneously listed the game as coming to PC eventually, Demon's Souls remake currently has no plans to come to PC or elsewhere.
At least for the foreseeable future, Demon's Souls remake will be a PS5 exclusive.
However, don't lose hope just yet. Other Sony exclusives have found their way to PC, like Horizon: Zero Dawn – never say never!
Demon's Souls remake: where to pre-order
You can pre-order Demon's Souls from the following retailers in the US: Walmart, BestBuy, Amazon
And the following retailers in the UK: Currys, GAME, ShopTo, Amazon
Or in Australia: Harvey Norman, Amazon
You can pre-order the Deluxe Edition from the PlayStation Store too.
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