Sony Can Correct Past Mistakes With Demon's Souls on PS5

Although the Souls series has developed a strong and dedicated fan base known for their love of challenging combat and darkly fantastic worlds, the franchise didn’t always start out that way. In fact, well before the Dark Souls trilogy, there was a unique PlayStation exclusive title that some at Sony felt might not have a strong appeal.

Demon’s Souls was the game that kicked off the Souls series, put FromSoftware on the map, and established a genre of game that is now so ubiquitous with the franchise that most unofficially call similar games “Soulslikes.” It had different concepts at play than Dark Souls, like a HUB world where players travel to different areas, but a lot of the familiar Souls elements are seen in this very first title. So gamers would be forgiven for assuming that if Demon’s Souls inspired a whole Souls series (including Souls-esque spin-offs like Bloodborne and Sekiro) it was a hit with everybody.

However, Demon’s Souls had a lot of question marks hanging over its head regarding whether or not gamers would be receptive to the harsh difficulty. In fact, Sony was so unsure of Demon’s Souls that it decided not to publish the game outside of Japan. It was a critical error on the studio’s part in hindsight but now Sony is trying to correct its mistake over 10 years later.

The story of Demon’s Souls development took a lot of twists and turns, as developer FromSoftware wrestled with the idea of releasing a game that was meant to be very difficult. In 2009, most games offered a variety of difficulty settings that allowed players to choose what kind of experience they wanted. The Souls series tells players that this is the experience the developer has designed and they can take it or leave it.

The game’s development also saw designer Hidetaka Miyazaki take over directorial duties and put his stamp on the game. In the process, Miyazaki cemented himself as the key creative force behind FromSoftware’s future works and who many Souls fans consider the godfather of the genre. Like Nintendo fans worship Miyamoto, Souls fans worship Miyazaki.

But regardless of how the series is viewed now, Sony still was unsure of Demon’s Souls back then and decided not to publish the game outside of Japan. Atlus took over that responsibility and to Sony’s chagrin, the game was a hit with Western audiences. The challenge was a strong conversation piece among gamers and the emphasis on boss fights helped create a number of little moments that players could share. As FromSoftware had hoped, the difficulty helped support a feeling of accomplishment rather than defeat.

Unfortunately for FromSoftware, because Sony still owned the Demon’s Souls IP, the developer could not capitalize on the game’s success without further approval. Instead ,the studio designed a spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls called Dark Souls and the rest is history. Still, it’s interesting to consider that Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls could have been a PlayStation exclusive franchise all along if Sony had faith in the product.

With the past behind both studios, Sony is now making good on its mistake by letting developer Bluepoint Games create a remake of Demon’s Souls for PS5. No more help from Atlus or uncertainty about the difficulty; this is a Sony-published and backed game. Sony even put it in the recent PS5 reveal stream and included an intro from Shuhei Yoshida where he explained how dear the project was to him.

In a way, this is Sony’s way of owning up to the mistake and helping boost the profile of the Souls series. Many years ago, Yoshida discussed why Sony never published Demon's Souls outside of Japan and explained that he felt the game was "crap" because he was still stuck at the beginning after two hours. But Yoshida brought everything full circle by introducing Demon's Souls Remake during the PS5 event.

Of course, the game isn't developed by FromSoftware but it should carry on the spirit of the original. Bluepoint does great work when it comes to remakes by honoring the developers that originally created the game.

In addition to the opportunity for Sony, this is also an opportunity for PlayStation gamers to experience Demon’s Souls. Because of the lack of backward compatibility and other restrictions, some may never have played Demon’s Souls and seen where the series got its roots (not to mention King’s Field). It could even, if successful, pave the way for FromSoftware to work on a proper Demon’s Souls sequel exclusively for the PS5.

Demon’s Souls Remake has no current release date but will be available on PS5.