Dark Souls 2 to be more open-ended than the first game

While Dark Souls was quite an open-ended game, Dark Souls 2’s Director Yui Tanimura has revealed to Digital Spy that the sequel will allow much more freedom to players. Tanimura has teased that players won’t be forced to accomplish certain objectives in a certain order so as to progress in the game.

“Freedom of exploration is something we want to prioritise for Dark Souls 2, even more so than Dark Souls 1,” Tanimura told Digital Spy. “In Dark Souls 1, you were able to travel to several areas, but hopefully for Dark Souls 2, there you have more freedom to explore throughout the game.”

Foolhardly players can start mid-way through the game

He stated the presence of some pre-requisite objectives in Dark Souls to progress through the game, such as ringing the bells or going to Anor Lando. He goes on to state that players can take on objectives in a less linear fashion in the sequel, even going as far as letting foolhardy or confident players start mid-way through the game.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

“We’re hoping that if the player tries hard enough, or are willing enough, they could even start halfway through the game, depending on how willing or how brave they are,” says Tanimura.

Tanimura had revealed back in April that the PC version of the game will run at a stable 60 fps. This is in stark contrast to the sloppy port of Dark Souls that was released last year and ran at 30 fps. Development on the different platforms is going on simultaneously. The console version of Dark Souls 2 will run at 30 fps.

The game will also have a completely new graphics engine which is said to not have any elements from the previous games’ engines.

Dark Souls 2 is set to hit PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in March 2014.