Demon’s Souls kick started the rise of From Software as a prominent developer in the eyes of gaming enthusiasts. The videogame was released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in Japan on February 5, 2009, before coming out in the United States on October 6, 2009. So should the cult hit game be remastered for the PlayStation 4? We certainly think so. If you need some convincing, you can check out our top five reasons as to why the action RPG needs a PS4 port below.
5. Success of Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne
Demon’s Souls came out on the PlayStation 3 with very little fanfare as there wasn’t anything quite like it before. The critical success of the original helped From Software gain more recognition, which helped the company from a financial perspective when they decided to release both Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 for multiple platforms. Their latest project, the PS4-exclusive Bloodborne, is also shaping up to be a big success as well.
Since Demon’s Souls only came out for the PlayStation 3, a big portion of From Software’s fan base who don’t own the last-gen console missed out on the game. Porting it to the PlayStation 4, especially after the release of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, would give new fans an opportunity to play the first installment of the Bloodborne/Souls franchise.
4. Sony’s History with Remastered Games
Sony worked together with From Software in the development of Demon’s Souls. The company admitted that they overlooked the videogame when it came to publishing the action-RPG in the west. Instead, Atlus handled the release for Europe and North America.
Demon’s Souls Remastered could by Sony’s way to making amends to From Software. Not to mention that Sony has a long history of porting old games to new platforms. Some of the more notable examples are God of War Collection, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection, The Last of Us Remastered, God of War III Remastered and many more. So Sony, and even From Software (the studio ported Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin to current-gen console), have more than enough experience with remastered releases.
3. Quality of Demon’s Souls
While From Software further expanded on the core elements introduced in Demon’s Souls with Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne, the first game is still an excellent title filled with many memorable experiences. If you decided to skip it, you will miss out on some of the best bosses, environments and characters in the series.
Even with the spiritual successors, Demon’s Souls holds up very well by today’s standards. Not to mention that the development team could use the remastered release to fix some of the issues with the original version.
2. Improved Graphics and Optimizations
Most of the complaints regarding Demon’s Souls on the PlayStation 3 revolve around the graphics. Being an early game developed for the PS3, the videogame looks subpar even though its art direction is still excellent. The frame rate can also get choppy during the more intensive moments.
All of these should be addressed in the theoretical remastered version of Demon’s Souls as From Software has more hardware power to play it. For example, the company bumped the resolution to 1080p and frame rate to 60 per second while improving the lighting with the recent release of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin on PS4 when compared to the original PS3 version of Dark Souls 2.
1. Potential of Adding New Content
From Software could also add more content to Demon’s Souls Remastered. The original PlayStation 3 version has a broken arch stone, which was believed to lead to the Land of Giants, that many fans thought would be a part of DLC. However, the game never got an expansion.
The development team could use the opportunity to add the rumored Land of Giants, as well as other content, to give some incentives for gamers who already played the original PS3 release to death to buy the game again on the PlayStation 4.
Aside from keeping Bloodborne updated with patch updates and potentially DLC, From Software has not yet announced what their next project will be. Hopefully, they have enough time (or they can even enlist help from another development studio) to release a remastered version of Demon’s Souls for the PS4.