Dark Souls 3 to feature Bloodborne influenced combat

Everything in Dark Souls 3 will still wants to kill you, just like in the rest of the games in the Souls series. While there will be a couple new elements in the game, most of the game will feature similar elements from previous games within the series.

In previous interviews, Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, has revealed that the "player character moves faster than the previous two installments and can be controlled more intuitively." Looking deeper into that as well as the combat reveals that the game will borrow elements from Bloodborne.

An interview in the latest issue of EDGE with the team developing Dark Souls 3 has revealed what's new to the combat system and how Bloodborne contributed. Check out the excerpt below:

There are traces of Bloodborne in the combat, too. While the new hero is no Hunter, he certainly seems more agile than before. The backstep in particular has been sped up, and a longsword is swung more quickly too, with no apparent damage penalty (though enemy health bars – along with the entire HUD – have been disabled here, just as they were at last year’s Bloodborne unveiling).

That increased fluidity is mirrored in the weapon set as well; we find a scimitar on a corpse later in the demo that is, in fact, a pair, and when dual-wielding them, the protagonist strikes with a level of grace and speed unmatched in previous Souls games. They can also be deployed in a spin attack, a tornado of flashing steel that, when properly timed to account for its wind-up animation and correctly spaced to allow for the step forward at the start, can clear a four-strong mob of enemies.

That move – the logically, if rather unimaginatively, titled Spin – is powered by a new core mechanic, dubbed Ready Stance. It’s a pose you can enter from which new types of attacks are launched. With a longsword equipped, for instance, the resulting attack is a forward-moving swipe that hits with enough force to break through an opponent’s guard; later, we’ll use a greatsword for a charging upward slash that launches an enemy into the air, slams then back to the ground and deals enormous damage in the process.

Not all the changes are about hitting hard: the shortbow can now be used to speedily chip away at an enemy’s health from mid-range while locked on (adherents to a rangier, more precise school of archery can stick to the longbow). Overall, there’s been a clear focus on improving the range of attacks at your disposal, and the damage you can dish out.

There's much, much more to this interview in EDGE.

[WCCF]