Bloodborne is definitely not Demon’s Souls 2, but still hard

The reveal of Bloodborne on the PlayStation 4 has drawn plenty of comparisons to From Software’s other games, most notably, the Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls.  While the game does have plenty of similarities, Hidetaka Miyazaki explains that Bloodborne is definitely not a sequel or spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls.

“The project actually started out with the proposal to make something new on new hardware,” says Miyazaki.  “It was around the time that development for Artorias of the Abyss Edition of Dark Souls settled down, and it was still before the initial PS4 announcement.”

“Those of us working on the game never even considered it Demon’s Souls 2,” Miyazaki continues.

This conversation between Miyazaki and 4Gamer also reveals that while the development for Dark Souls 2 was ongoing, he was already working on Bloodborne.

We still want players to feel a sense of accomplishment

Miyazaki also puts to bed any speculation that Bloodborne will be more accessible that the Souls games.  “From the very beginning of this project, the whole premise was to make a serious game for people who like games. On top of that premise, we have a multiple themes throughout the various layers of the game, but three big ones would be “exploring the unknown,” “the feeling of fighting for one’s life,” and “new online elements.”  

“With Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, we always wanted players to feel a sense of accomplishment. That’s the only reason we went with a higher difficulty… In order to make that feeling even stronger than before, we needed another pillar other than just a high difficulty.  We want the players to feel scared of the enemies and for the combat to feel deadly. That way, when they emerge victorious, there’s a very strong sense of joy, or relief. We want players to feel like, “That was crazy! I can’t believe I won…,” continues Miyazaki.  

The reveal of Bloodborne introduced a game that does indeed look familiar to the Souls games, but it’s really starting to sound an evolution of this brand of RPG, instead of a continuation or iteration on the existing franchise.

Bloodborne is due out in 2015, exclusively on the PlayStation 4.