Images of the game, pitched then rejected by bandai namcoshow what Dark Souls 3 could have looked like if it had been Metroidvania in 2D pixelart, and it’s kinda gross.
By the artist behind Blasphemous
The pixel artist, Thomas Feichtmeirrevealed this dead-in-the-bud project on Twitter using an incredible image of one of the game’s iconic bosses, the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, in 2D and pixelart.
“A Dark Souls 3 – 2D pixel art Metroidvania game was offered to Bandai Namco about 6 years ago,” Thomas Feichtmeir explained on Twitter. “It’s now finally out of the NDA [ndlr : accord de non divulgation que l’artiste a du signer avec Bandai Namco]so enjoy the visuals created at the time.”
“The [concept art] here was created in a style that would have been achievable by the kinds of average Metroidvania budgets at the time,” Feichtmeir added.
“At the time, it was obvious that Metroidvania was hitting a nerve and was going to get big,” he says. “Most of the Metroidvania games that were released or looked interesting were inspired by Dark Souls, so the idea made a lot of sense.”
Thomas Feichtmeir can boast of being an expert on the subject, having already worked on a number of Metroidvania inspired by the dark tone as well as the medieval fantasy aspect of the Dark Souls series, such as Blasphemous, notably.
It’s unclear why Bandai Namco turned down the project, but given the revealed image above, one can’t help but wonder what an entire game would have looked like. Shame !
The return of Dark Souls online
On another note, it would seem that the Dark Souls game servers are back, after several months of absence certainly justified by the workload required by Elden Ring.
If the servers and online mechanics of Dark Souls Remastered are restored without incident, it seems that the PvP servers of Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 2: Scholars Of The First Sin are still unstable and potentially dangerous for your personal data and the health of your PC in general.
The PvP servers of Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition will not be reactivated.