First round of Dark Souls 2 beta to start on October 12

Developer From Software and publisher Namco Bandai have revealed that the first round of the Dark Souls 2 beta for North America, Europe, Asia and Australia will start on October 12. The second round is set to start on October 27. Those who want to take part in the beta can check out the PlayStation Store page for Dark Souls 2 to register for it.

Earlier, Namco Bandai has stated that players will get to try out “an entirely new area of the game,” which hints to the possibility that the closed beta won’t be the same part of the game that was demoed at gaming conventions this year. Hopefully, it will be just as brutal as both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls were.

Everything is better with dragons

Since the official announcement of the game at last year’s Spike VGA, we’ve learned quite a bit about the game from developer interviews and the like. The most recent bit of information from back in July revealed that Dark Souls 2 will allow more freedom to players.

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The game’s Director Yui Tanimura told Digital Spy, “Freedom of exploration is something we want to prioritise for Dark Souls 2, even more so than Dark Souls 1.” He continued, “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.”

Dark Souls 2 is slated for a March 2014 release date on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. There is no word on whether it will be hitting the next-gen consoles.