Atlus to maintain Demon's Souls servers until 2011

This is your lucky day, masochists! Atlus has announced that it will extend support for Demon's Souls' online servers until "at least" March 2011. When the game shipped in April 2009, the Demon's Souls user agreement made it clear that online functionality would be sponsored for "no less than six months". Now it would appear that the game's surprising success has led Atlus to extend that commitment significantly.

In celebration, Atlus is flipping the Demon's Souls World Tendency to Pure White, which will knock the controller-snapping difficulty down a few notches. The change should last for "a couple weeks," just long enough to lull newcomers into a false sense of security.

Show full PR text

ATLUS EXTENDS NORTH AMERICAN ONLINE SUPPORT FOR DEMON'S SOULS, 2009 GAME OF THE YEAR*, THROUGH AT LEAST MARCH 2011; WORLD TENDENCY SHIFTS TO PURE WHITE IN CELEBRATION
Good news, everyone!
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA -- JULY 21, 2010 -- Atlus U.S.A., Inc. today announced it would continue supporting servers for online play in Demon's Souls™, 2009's Game of the Year* for PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, through at least March 2011.

"We are proud to maintain our commitment to the Demon's Souls online community by extending our support for the game's servers, allowing current and new players to continue to enjoy the game's vast online feature set," stated Aram Jabbari, Manager of PR and Sales for Atlus. "One of the highest-rated, most talked about games of all time, Demon's Souls is defined by its groundbreaking online functionality. No other game better marries suspenseful, claustrophobic solitude with unprecedented cooperative and competitive multiplayer connectivity. Each game world, each individual's adventure, can be bridged with those of others', making for one of the most startlingly grand yet deeply intimate RPG experiences ever created."

To celebrate the announcement, the game server's World Tendency, a variable that can make the game more or less difficult and unlock secrets depending on its setting, will be shifted to Pure White for a couple weeks, making the notoriously challenging game slightly easier for newcomers while also allowing long-time veterans to reach otherwise inaccessible areas and items.

Demon's Souls is out now for PlayStation 3 system. For more information, visit the game's official website.

Reader Comments (73)

@copa

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

everything you need to know about the game is on that wiki

As for your current situation, the big pillars going up and down the stairs in the middle of the Nexus are the entrances to the different zones.

Also, remember to talk to the woman in black. I remember for the first like 4 hours of the game, I was unaware that I could level up my character by talking to her.

@copa you lazy bum.

keep playing the game, man!!!

@ccc

Do eet.

I've been meaning to pick this up, but I was always a little confused. Is online required to play it? I know I read about how you could resurrect yourself by joining someone else's game, but what happens if you play offline and die?

@Courtney

Hey, glad you are considering this game. I just started about a month ago, and I can't believe I waited this long to get it. Absolutely amazing.

The game plays just fine in offline mode. Even when you're playing online, the online aspect is very subtle if you're playing in Soul form, unless you go looking for it. When you're in Body form, you can get invaded by people in Soul form (black phantoms), and you can call people to help you (blue phantoms). Other than that, when you're online, you'll mostly just see messages on the ground and bloodstains of people who died.

What is Soul form? Well, whenever you die, you go into Soul form. The biggest difference between being in Soul form and being in Body form (besides online stuff) is that you get less health and deal more damage as a soul. Helping your friends is one way of resurrecting yourself, but it's not the only way. When you beat a level, when you help someone beat a level, or when you just eat a certain uncommon item, you can get back into Body form. Also, you can invade someone's world and kill them to get your body back too :)

Most people spend 90% of the time playing in Soul form anyway, since death often comes quickly and unexpectedly. One of the messages you can leave is "I've been in Soul form for so long." Everyone always recommends that message. :P

It's nice though, because after beating almost every level, you feel like you're king of the world.

@LockeDaemonfire

Dude, thanks for the in depth and very clear answer. I had some obvious misconceptions about how the online/death system worked. I'll definitely be picking it up now.

@Courtney
On top of that, you have world and character tendancies
These range from pure black to pure white. at either pure, in every world you can do something special, fight a special boss, or get a rare item or something. Pure white means weaker guys, and worse drops and less souls(currency). Pure black is the opposite and further reduced hp in soul form. plus in pure black, black phantom enemies will appear who are much harder than regular ones.

Doing stuff in the game affects world tendancy.

Tendancy ranges from -4 to +3. black to white, respectively.
Death in soul form = -1 tendancy
kill great demon(boss) = +1
kill primeval demon = +3

In soul form, death does not affect tendancy.
Your character tendancy is affected by how much you pvp or help people online, but can be changed otherwise. this dictates 10% of your health. If you have pure black = pvp a lot, you have 10% less health. if you help lots of people you will have more. getting pure of either one nets you a ring, and possibly some nice stuff if you do pure black.

This is the very reason I kinda prefer P2P more.
Even if the connection is bad sometimes (99% of the time, I can't tell the difference between P2P and ded) but as long as their is a few people online, you'll always connect :D

Demon's Souls is still my favorite game for this generation of consoles, with MGS4 sitting at a very close 2nd. If you're still debating wether to get this game or not, get it. That's all I have to say.

It's too bad they can't find a way to keep it P2P so that the game's online mode can persist pretty much forever.

Why can't the online mode last longer?? The game isn't even that old...

This announcement actually makes me sad that the online portion of the game will not be there some day.

I hope that this is a semi-confirmation of a Demon's Souls 2 coming March 2011.

I literally bought this game earlier today, and when I was looking at the online agreement it mentioned the servers would be up for a minimum of 6 months after release. That made me wonder how long they were going to support it. Funny that this was announced the same day. Looking forward to playing the hell out of it, and I'm glad I didn't miss the boat on the online features.

Awesome--just got it a month ago, but still slogging thru the shitstorm that is ff13--maybe I should just drop that and go all ds all over the place.

Dragon Bone Sword for everyone! Better Hurry!

Good. It's on sale new at EBgames and was just waiting for them to get
some new copies in.

This game isn't as hard as people make it out to be. You can exploit the AI to the max by just using a bow in most situations. Once you get the idea of how things work you can avoid a vast amount of the challenge.

@acefondu

THIEF RING!

This is the problem with games today is there is some online component that can be canceled at any time.
Chrome Hounds on the 360 for example the main part of the game was on line now its gone. When it comes to console gaming i want may game to work as long as the console works

@L0sther0

the difference here is that Demon's Souls' online portion isn't the main part of the game.

What the hell is Demon's Souls?

Previous 50 Comments

Demon's Souls

Atlus to maintain Demon's Souls servers until 2011

Reader Comments (73)

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 7:41PM Kid Icarus said

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 7:57PM KillaPat said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 4:28PM rubadub72 said

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 7:37PM Kid Icarus said

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 7:38PM Courtney said

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 9:31PM LockeDaemonfire said

Posted: Jul 21st 2010 9:46PM Courtney said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 12:25AM PurpleFries said

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Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 4:41AM brown805 said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 6:45AM Tunguska said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 8:20AM acefondu said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 4:32PM rubadub72 said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 12:38PM L0sther0 said

Posted: Jul 22nd 2010 4:34PM rubadub72 said

Posted: Jul 23rd 2010 11:25AM Assassin said

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