Demon's Souls

Developer From Software is working on the sequel to Dark Souls right now, but it won’t release that game for months.

Perhaps you skipped the game that preceded Dark Souls in the loosely tied-together series, Demon’s Souls, but had trouble finding it in stores. Well, publisher Atlus is ready to help you hop into the challenging role-playing title when it releases Demon’s Souls on Tuesday on PlayStation Network for $19.99.

This is also good news for long-time fans of the game.

In May, Atlus planned to shut down Demon’s Souls’ servers, which would have disabled many of its most interesting social and multiplayer features. For example, opposing players can actually control one of the bosses in other people’s games.

At that time, Atlus backpedaled and decided to keep the servers running, but it didn’t provide a new shut-off date. This announcement ensures the servers will continue to run into the foreseeable future.

To celebrate the digital release, Atlus will set the game servers to “Pure White,” which lowers the Demon’s Souls punishing difficulty. This’ll make it easier for new players to get the hang of things, but it’ll also offer long-time players a chance to accomplish goals that are normally much more challenging.

Demon’s Souls is a fantasy role-playing game that focuses on combat against difficult opponents. Players collect souls, but they can lose them if they die and fail to return to the point at which they died. This turns the game into an interesting scenario of challenge management, where the gamer must remain aware of when to continue fighting and when to retreat.