While Dark Souls is predominantly known as a single-player series, the games have built on unique online features going all the way back to Demon’s Souls. So even though the thought of a Souls battle royale is arresting, it shouldn’t be surprising that director and FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki is interested in the industry’s current trends.
“There’s always the possibility” that FromSoftware could join the current trends of battle royale and live services, Miyazaki tells the Telegraph. “These games are definitely fun. And we’re interested in the patterns they are taking. If we did it, it might be a bit different! But we’re definitely interested and there’s definitely that possibility in the future. We’d love to take a crack at them some day.”
The slow-paced melee combat of Souls would certainly make for a notable variation on battle royale, but there’s plenty of other material in the company’s catalogue to mine from. Just imagine you and 99 other mech falling from the sky in an Armored Core version. Or this could be just the chance for FromSoftware pull out something wholly new.
It’s worth noting that some kind of Dark Souls 3 “battle royale” was datamined from the game files ages ago, but that wasn’t necessarily a PUBG-style take on the genre – especially considering PUBG wasn’t even out at that point.
In the interview, Miyazaki also notes the success of single-player titles from last year’s Spider-Man and God of War to the impending release of Devil May Cry 5. “Regardless of what From Software is doing, we need people making battle royale games and live services and we need people making single-player focussed experiences. We feel that this diversity is what will keep everyone going.”
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The Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice release date is coming up soon, and it’s an even more single-player focused thing than Souls. From’s oddball creativity paid off in a big way following Dark Souls, so whatever the company does next it’ll be worth watching closely.