I'm kind of bummed out right now, though. The gaming industry has claimed the life of another beloved franchise of mine, that being the Souls series. When the trailer was first shown at the VGAs, Leslie and I were skeptical but optimistic. I mean, it really was a pretty generic trailer, almost all of it being plot-related CG, emphasis on some pretty lady, no gameplay shown. Most curious of all was the fact that it was premiered at the VGAs of all places, where Claptrap is rewarded Character of the Year and WiiSports was a contender for Game of the Decade. This isn't the kind of place where a Souls game should be announced. But hey, it's From Software! It's Dark Souls II! Nothing could go TOO terribly wrong, right?

 

Well, everything was alright until we read this article.

 

We had already heard that the game was going to be a bit more straight-forward and less subtle, which we were cautious about already. But reading this article brings a number of scary possibilites at what this next game might be like. Interesting bullet points to read are the inclusion of an in-game journal for objectives, a larger focus on action-oriented set-pieces rather than dungeon treks, and on-rails vehicle sections. 

 

The biggest concern to me is that the main visionary of the Souls series was forced to step down and move to another project. This whole thing reeks of publisher Namco-Bandai following in the misguided footsteps of Capcom. I guess they weren't contempt with destroying Ace Combat, so they had to go and fuck up their next best thing. When are publishers going to realize that alienating your current fanbase to try and steal another's never fucking works? Ever? I'm seriously concerned that Namco is going to ruin yet another series attempting to streamline it and appeal to the Skyrim audience, and once it fails because of their meddling, they'll blame the fans, they'll blame the developers, everyone but themselves. And they'll cast the whole fucking franchise aside and leave it to die just like so many other great series this generation has taken.

 

I just want my favorite video games to stop getting ruined by their completely out-of-touch publishers. 

 

I'm going to go play more Demon's Souls. See you next update!