Demon's Souls Easy Mode almost happened, but was scrapped to preserve 'spirit and intent'
Despite some changes that smooth pain points of Demon's Souls, Bluepoint scrapped an Easy Mode because it would have 'fundamentally altered' the game's balance.
Whenever a new Soulsborne game comes out, you can expect that the conversation about difficulty will also come up. After all, nothing FromSoftware has ever cobbled together has been easy to complete. Demon’s Souls, whether it’s the original or the remake by Bluepoint Games, is no different. That said, Bluepoint Games apparently considered an Easy Mode at some point of development, and then scrapped it to remain faithful to the original game’s intent.
Bluepoint CEO Gavin Moore addressed the matter in a recent correspondence with the Washington Post. According to Moore, Easy Mode was something on the table at Bluepoint at some point of the Demon’s Souls development, but the team apparently tossed the idea out to keep close to the original vision of the game.
“This project remakes the work of another development team," Moore explained. “While we’ve made some changes, our core driving mantra has always been to preserve the spirit and intent of the original creators. While we considered and discussed an easy mode, we ultimately decided it wasn’t our place - merely being custodians for this amazing game - to add something that would fundamentally alter its balance.”
"Some changes" might arguably be considered an understatement. The Demon’s Souls remake features a new ring that makes one of the most annoying areas in the game far less annoying. In addition, the game’s archaic inventory system was reworked. Where you could not pick up items once you were at the limited inventory threshold (of which everything has weight, even the game’s annoyingly limited curatives), Bluepoint added an option to teleport items back to your storage at home base for sorting and use later.
That is to say, Bluepoint was seemingly okay with making some notable changes to the grindy and sometimes obnoxious nature of the game, but Easy Mode was simply not something the team felt comfortable pursuing at a certain point. Spirit and intent aside, that decision makes Demon’s Souls the kind of game that arguably isn’t going to win anyone who typically has trouble with these games over. But it seems it’s just going to be the way it is. It’s still a decent remake of a pretty good action-RPG. Read more about our thoughts on Demon’s Souls, both good and bad, in our full Shacknews review.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Demon's Souls Easy Mode almost happened, but was scrapped to preserve 'spirit and intent'
