Dark Souls 2 is From Software’s chance to continue to construct on its hard-as-nails series that began as an unlikely PS3 exclusive in Demon’s Souls.

There may need only been a couple of niggling issues with the unique Dark Souls at the Xbox 360 (besides from its crushing difficulty, needless to say), but Dark Souls 2 is admittedly about From Software experimenting with the formula…

…that and giving players much more opportunity to throw their controllers on the wall in pure frustration.

From Software has revealed a host of latest features or even shown off just how good Dark Souls 2 is calling, but listed below are a couple of belongings you might need missed…

01 It’s still stupidly hard

We were never expecting anything but a ridiculously hard game given the former outing, but some players got a touch worried when Dark Souls 2’s director, Tomohiro Shibuya bandied concerning the term ‘accessible’, given the impression that it could actually be a neater game.

But, that is not the case…

“Obviously the sport will not become easier,” explained co-director Yui Tanimura.

“What we did mean by making it more accessible was to check out to streamline away all the tediousness, i assume, and cut away the entire fat to be able to deliver a lean, direct and pure challenging experience for players on the market.”

“So we apologise for casually using the word accessible, but please remember the fact that the issue will maintain.”

02 a brand new engine will fix the framerate

The original Dark Souls on Xbox 360, pretty much as good because it looked, did be afflicted by a juddering framerate when anything larger than a skeleton was attacking the player. Or even then, two or three skeletons would send the framerate dropping erratically because it tried to manage.

It was never a game-breaking issue, nevertheless it did go a way to sucking you out of the experience and in a game like Dark Souls, that’s never an excellent thing.

It’s excellent news, though, not just is Dark Souls 2 using a reconstructed engine, which means that the lighting looks loads better, but additionally the framerate now sits comfortably on an exceptional 30fps.

PC players, the lucky things, get a silky smooth 60fps, but so long as it stays constant on 30fps, we’re very happy to peer Dark Souls 2 looking like this.

03 Torches Are Your Life

This is maybe a by-fabricated from the hot lighting system in Dark Souls 2, but wandering into pitch black rooms, a torch in a single and a sword within the other, is determined to become commonplace.

That in itself isn’t unusual, games were letting players do this for years, but, here is Dark Souls.

If you lose that torch, take successful from an enemy emerging from the darkness, it’ll exit and you will be left at the hours of darkness not knowing where to move.

You’ve got to maintain it lit and to your hand or you might besides fall by yourself sword since it won’t be long before something bigger and nastier makes its way towards you and takes your head off.

04 There is a Storm Coming

You would possibly not realise this but Dark Souls 2 will utilise weather systems in a singular way of shaking up the gameplay. Weather has generally been used to set the scene or evoke a undeniable mood (rather successfully, we’d add), but now players must be more ware of what the elements is doing around them than ever before.

“So in relation to weather, it’s hard to provide an excessive amount of information at this point,” explained Tanimura.

“We do plan to have players experience and play with our surroundings.”

“Obviously with Dark Souls I, having players treading through water was slower than on ground, such things as that, we plan to implement.”

“One of any other things we wish to kind of play with is the usage of wind.”

“We will continue to follow with more details of that afterward – not necessarily with weather but with environmental [challenges], on the way to be key to Dark Souls 2.”

It’s finally coming! The long awaited next-generation console offering from Microsoft might be announced via a live stream on Xbox Live and Xbox.com at the 21st May at 6pm. Speculation at the console have been rife up to now months, with rumours of “always online” functionality, and a more controlled environment for second hand games causing controversy for the PlayStation 4 rival.

It’s also expected that a whole roster of games for both the subsequent-generation Xbox and the PlayStation 4 will be announced at E3 in June.

Will Microsoft prove the cynics right? or will the subsequent Xbox be the simplest thing to happen to gaming because the NES? Only time will tell.

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Liam and Ross discuss loot vs story as they have a look at the industries struggles as its inherent mechanics and its core tenants start to clash against the more mature storytelling that’s becoming a growing number of prevalent each year….

…..then, well, then they get over excited and discuss Star Wars. a whole lot. Do not be concerned though, there’s a lot more gaming chat or even a wee little bit of movie news as Liam discusses Oblivion and appears forward to Evil Dead.

As always, in the event you like what you hear, please subscribe on iTunes and hit us up on Twitter (@Brashcast) and Facebook.

Enjoy!

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Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, like quite a few games currently in development, will straddle both current-gen and next-gen consoles.

But what do we really expect from this odd set-up and will the present-gen Xbox really stay alongside of the subsequent-gen versions?

We caught up with two of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag developers to invite what they think…

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag director Ashraf Ismail…

Can you talk in any respect about what improvements we are able to expect to determine inside the next-gen versions?

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag director Ashraf Ismail…

“We’re really that specialize in ACIV as one core game experience.”

“For next gen, we’ve a team of artists, technical artists and programmers who’re really pushing the visuals.”

“I’m really biased in saying this, but it’s looking stunning – the Caribbean within the next-gen versions is admittedly gorgeous.”

“But we’re also supporting the features of next gen, both announced and unannounced. We can have some surprises for next-gen consoles, feature wise.”

The sport looks amazing from what we have seen up to now.

How rather more power do you believe there’s to squeeze out of the 360 and what excites you most in regards to the prospect of working with next-gen hardware?

Lead writer, Darby McDevitt…

“The Xbox 360 never ceases to surprise us, so we are going to squeeze as much power out of it as possible.”

“As for next gen… most of the people specialize in the enhanced graphics, but there are such a lot of smaller, less tangible benefits that include this hardware, and we glance forward to seeing what we will do under the hood in addition. Time will tell.”