Dark Souls 2's E3 trailer showed a game that was unmistakably Dark Souls, albeit overlayed with a hilariously inappropriate nu-metal soundtrack. What was less obvious was the enhancements made to the game's new engine. Beyond a few nicer particle effects, will it really have a dramatic difference? According to the game's co-director, Yui Tanimura: yes, it will. Of course, he would say that.
An an interview with Polygon , Tanimura revealed a desire to see subtler expressions in the new game - something achievable with the new engine. He said (through a translator) that the enhanced graphics would allow players to "dive in and immerse themselves within the actual gameplay and feel as if they are actually part of the game itself." Oh good, that doesn't sound terrifying at all.
"The idea of gimmicks in the game is now doable with this new engine," Tanimura continued. "Things like representing an enemy that is perhaps off-screen but with movement of shadows, or that kind of expression in the game. It's something that [I] always wanted to do but wasn't able to do with the previous engine."
"There's a lot of ideas like that. We don't want to give everything away, but those kinds of things are small things that we wanted to express, and with this engine we think we can do that."
Dark Souls is due out March 2014.
