is a 2009 action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It was released in Japan in February 2009, in North America by Atlus in October 2009, and in PAL territories by Namco Bandai Partners in June 2010. The game is referred to as a spiritual successor to FromSoftware's King's Field series.
Demon's Souls is set in Boletaria, a kingdom consumed by a dark being called the Old One, following its release through the use of forbidden Soul Arts. Players take on the role of a hero brought to Boletaria to kill its fallen king Allant and pacify the Old One. Gameplay has players navigating five different worlds from a hub called the Nexus, with a heavy emphasis on challenging combat and mechanics surrounding player death and respawning. Online multiplayer allows both player cooperation and world invasions featuring player versus player combat.
A collaboration between FromSoftware and Sony's Japan Studio, the game's early development was troubled due to a lack of coherent vision. Despite such issues, designer Hidetaka Miyazaki was able to take over the project and helped to turn the game into what it eventually became. The game's difficulty was intended to both evoke classic video games and provide a sense of challenge and accomplishment for players. This aspect proved demanding for Miyazaki, partly because of his fear that Sony would ask the team to lower the difficulty in order to make the game more accessible.
Announced in 2008, early reactions to the Demon's Souls demo were seen as negative, and the game's high difficulty prompted Sony to pass on publishing the game outside of Japan. The game initially had slow sales in Japan, but achieved commercial and critical success in the West through positive word of mouth, exceeding sales expectations. It was praised for its difficult combat and addictive gameplay, subsequently winning several awards. Demon's Souls introduced many of the core elements that would define the Soulslike genre and it has since been cited as one of the greatest games of all time. Its success led to the spiritual successor series Dark Souls. FromSoftware's relationship with Sony would lead to the release of Bloodborne and Déraciné, while a remake of the same name was released in 2020 for the PlayStation 5.
Gameplay
Demon's Souls is a Soulslike action role-playing game where players take on the role of an adventurer, whose sex and appearance are customized at the beginning of the game, exploring the cursed land of Boletaria. Aspects of the customization impact various statistics (stats) related to gameplay. The player character is granted a starting character class, which further influences their stats, though they can be altered later in the game and effectively change a player's class combined with a different weapon choice. The world is divided into six areas; the Nexus hub world and five additional worlds subdivided into three areas that each end in a boss encounter, except for World 1, which is divided into 4. Combat is reliant on timing for weapon strikes and blocks, with different weapon types opening up a variety of combat options and altering the player's movement speed. Most actions drain a stamina meter, with its management forming a core part of combat. By defeating an enemy, the player acquires Souls, which act as both experience points to raise various statistics; and the game's currency for purchasing new weapons, armor and items. As the player invests, the number of souls required increases. Along with souls, players can retrieve items such as weaponry and ore for upgrading.
When a player is killed during a level, they are sent to the beginning of the level with all non-boss enemies re-spawned, while the player returns in soul form with lower maximum health and the loss of all unused souls. If the player manages to reach their bloodstain at the point where they were last killed, they regain their lost souls. However, if they are killed before then, the souls are lost permanently. Upon defeating a boss, the player can choose to re-spawn back to that location, marked in the form of an Archstone. When not exploring a level, the player resides in the Nexus, a realm that acts as a hub where the player can exchange souls, store items and travel between regions. After completing the initial portion of the first region, players can choose to progress through any other of the newly available regions.
Demon's Souls makes use of asynchronous multiplayer for those connected to the PlayStation Network. When navigating levels, players briefly see the actions of other players as ghosts in the same area that may show hidden passages or switches. When a player dies, a bloodstain can be left in other players' game world that when activated can show a ghost playing out their final moments, indicating how that person died and potentially helping the player avoid the same fate. Players can leave pre-written messages on the floor that can also help others such as forewarning safe or hostile positions, trap locations and tactics against enemies or bosses, among general comments. Co-operative play allows up to three characters to team up in a host world where visiting players appear in soul form that can only be returned to their bodies when a boss is defeated. In competitive play, players can invade another world as a Black Phantom to engage in combat with the host player. If the Black Phantom kills the host, they can be returned to their body in their own game, whereas if killed themselves, the host gains a portion of the Black Phantom's souls as well as the phantom losing an experience level. Some multiplayer elements are incorporated directly into gameplay events.
Several mechanics in the game are covered by World and Character Tendency. Character Tendency impacts the entire game, while World Tendency only affects a particular region. Character Tendency is influenced by a character's behaviour; starting from neutral, the player can shift their Tendency to black or white. Black tendency is triggered by actions such as killing NPCs and being antagonistic towards other players, in addition to dying repeatedly in a world. White tendency is born from helping others and being supportive to other players, and defeating bosses. World Tendency exists separately from Character Tendency; black tendency raises the difficulty by increasing enemy health while giving more valuable rewards, while white tendency allows more item drops and makes enemies weaker at the cost of rare items. World Tendency is also influenced by the overall Tendency of worlds on servers. At either end of the Tendency spectrum, exclusive events occur and new areas can be unlocked.
Plot Demon's Souls takes place in the kingdom of Boletaria. In ancient times, due to the misuse of magic known as the Soul Arts, Boletaria was attacked by a being called the Old One. The world was nearly consumed by the magical "Deep Fog" and the soul-eating demons it created. The Old One was eventually lulled to slumber, saving what remained of Boletaria, while some survivors became long-lived Monumentals to warn future generations. In the game's present, Boletaria's ruler King Allant restored the Soul Arts, awakening the Old One and its demon army. Boletaria is now being consumed by demons, with those humans without souls turning into insane monsters. Players take the role of an adventurer entering the fog engulfing Boletaria. After being killed, the player wakes up in the Nexus and meets a benevolent demon called the Maiden in Black, as well as various other characters.
Now bound to the Nexus until the Old One is returned to slumber, the player travels to five regions of Boletaria, killing the powerful demons controlling those areas and absorbing their souls to increase their power so they can face King Allant. However, the King Allant the player faces is revealed to be a demon imposter. After defeating the false King Allant, the Maiden in Black takes the player—now dubbed the "Slayer of Demons"—to the Old One. The Slayer of Demons faces the true King Allant, who has been transformed into a helpless blob-like demon, within the Old One's body. The Maiden in Black then arrives to put the Old One to sleep again.
If the Slayer of Demons leaves the Old One, they are hailed as the hero of a restored, though damaged, Boletaria, becoming a new Monumental to support the world as the knowledge of Soul Arts is lost. If the Slayer of Demons kills the Maiden in Black, the Slayer becomes a new, powerful demon in service to the Old One to sate their hunger for souls as the fog continues to spread.
Development
Demon's Souls was developed by FromSoftware, a developer noted for creating the King's Field and Armored Core series. The project was first proposed and supported by Japan Studio. Demon's Souls was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who had joined the company in 2004 and worked as a coder on the Armored Core series. The game was co-produced by FromSoftware's Masanori Takeuchi and Sony's Takeshi Kajii. The concept of reviving a "lost breed of action game" was first proposed by Kajii. Due to the team lacking a coherent vision, the original project had run into difficulties. Hearing about a high fantasy role-playing game which was considered a failure within the company, Miyazaki decided that if he took over the project, he could take it in any direction he wanted. Since it was already flagging, it did not matter if his own efforts failed. Including this early work, production of the game took approximately three years.
The initial concept for Demon's Souls came from FromSoftware's King's Field series, with Miyazaki citing its dark tone and high difficulty as the main inspirations for the game. Despite these inspirations, Miyazaki did not want to connect Demon's Souls to King's Field, and despite his urging otherwise many have termed the game as a spiritual successor to King's Field. Miyazaki hoped to take gaming back to its basics, creating a challenging gameplay-based experience he felt was dying out in the gaming market of the time. He wanted to create a game which would recreate the dark fantasy and hardcore feel of classic RPG titles (such as the King's Field and Wizardry series) on modern consoles, along with incorporated online elements. Miyazaki acknowledged some similarities to other video games such as Monster Hunter and Bushido Blade, but said the team did not have any specific video game influences in mind when creating Demon's Souls. After the first design documents were created, the game concept changed little during development. The final game did not come together in a playable form until very late in development, and even then there were network and framerate problems. The team were given a high amount of creative freedom, only possible due to what Kajii called "fortunate timing and release schedules".