Out of the massively impressive Souls catalog FromSoftware has to offer, Dark Souls 2 often stands out for many fans. Not only is it the sole Souls game not directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, but questionable decisions made by the studio during development have become a cause for wonder even today.
For those unaware, due to Miyazaki’s primary involvement with the making of Bloodborne, he was only able to join the Dark Souls 2 crew as a supervisor. To ensure the game still came out fulfilling fans’ expectations, FromSoft then decided to assign the title to 2 different directors, and that’s where everything went downhill.
The challenging development of Dark Souls 2 and what could have been
Dark Souls 2 had a lot of stakes riding on itself. Not only was it the sequel to one of the best-received Souls games at the time, but it alone could have decided what the future for FromSoft was going to look like.
Unfortunately, as said before, without primary Hidetaka Miyazaki’s involvement, it became harder than anyone’s guess to develop the game. One of the two developers of the game, Yui Tanimura, even revealed how the development of the game felt ‘arduous’, given that the studio had to nearly start over halfway through the development.
In the same interview, translated by Barnard Translations, Tanimura also reveals how there were different characters in the game that had to be scrapped and couldn’t be saved. Due to the game’s development taking a U-turn halfway in, roles of many characters had to be changed at the time, with many designs even going to waste because there seemed no appropriate placement for them.
What could have saved Dark Souls 2?
To begin with, it’s important to remember that despite all the negativity surrounding it, Dark Souls 2 is not a bad game. It just happens to be the odd one out in a legendary trilogy that decided the future of FromSoft and how it is going to head the industry by pioneering the Souls genre and its mechanics.
The problems with the game were outright, and the challenges the crew faced during the development showed clearly in the final version. The biggest misstep can be said to be the disjointed world that threw every player off after experiencing an amazing linear experience in the first Dark Souls game.
The world of Dark Souls 2 was confusing, and so were the transitions between different levels. There is no doubt about the fact that more time in development would have done the title some good, but either way, the game is now a cult-classic with its own little fanbase that defends the title from tooth to nail.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
