Dark Souls developer From Software is pretty stubborn. Its publisher for the Dark Souls games, Namco Bandai, wants the studio to make a mobile version of the popular (and brutally difficult) console role-playing games. From Software isn’t sure that’s such a great idea.
“We’d like to bring Dark Souls to mobile,” Namco Bandai director of global strategy Alex Adjaj told website Digital Spy in an interview. “But it’s very difficult because the guys at From Software are very much console oriented. To change their mind about it [will take] quite a while.”
Dark Souls is a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC action-RPG that has players slowly working their way through an oppressing open-world environment. Renown for its difficulty, Dark Souls (and its predecessor, Demon’s Souls) confronts players with potential death at every turn.
So why is From Software’s focus on consoles have it hesitating to make a mobile version of Dark Souls? Well, because of the touchscreen controls.
“The leads on Dark Souls are saying we don’t want to do mobile because the controls would have to be changed, and therefore it won’t be Dark Souls anymore,” said Adjaj. “At the same time, you have a growth in controllers for mobile. I think it’s not an impossible case scenario to see a Dark Souls game coming to mobile at some point.”
We’ve reached out to Namco Bandai and From Software to ask how likely that scenario really is. We’ll update this story with any new information.
Adjaj says that Namco Bandai is confident a Dark Souls for smartphones and tablets will work, but he also thinks that From Software would have to tone down the difficulty.
“I think there is a need to redesign the way you reroll in the game to make it a bit more casual, so with shorter sessions,” he said.
Of course, touchscreen controls and a change in difficulty could mean that a mobile Dark Souls isn’t really a Dark Souls at all … and that is, apparently, what From Software is worried about.
It makes sense that Namco Bandai would want a mobile version. Smartphone and tablet sales are huge, and gamers in every market are adopting those platforms and spending a lot of money — especially in its home territory of Japan and the rest of Asia, where microtransaction-based games like Puzzles & Dragons dominate.
Currently, From Software is working on Dark Souls II for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is due out in March.
