There was both excitement and sadness when Dark Souls 3 was released in 2016. The excitement was for the release of the game while the sadness was because of a remark made by the creator of the game, Hidetaka Miyazaki, suggesting that we may not get to see the release of the Dark Souls 4 or any other game in the franchise.
Nonetheless, fans of the game have not lost hope entirely. Whether or not that will pay off is something that only time can tell. Still, there are now some rumors that are making the rounds on the release date of the game as well as other announcements.
Taking a step back for those who have not followed the Souls franchise since from the start, it is an action role-playing game that started in 2009 as Demon’s Souls. Created by FromSoftware, the next game in the series Dark Souls came in 2011, followed by Dark Souls 2 in 2014. 2 years later, we saw the release of the Dark Souls 3 and then the Dark Souls: Remastered in 2018.
While the difficulty of many games is among the things that have destroyed them, it is not the same with this franchise as that is one of the things that have made it as popular as it is. More than that, the success of the game is credited to things like its story line as well as the experience that it offers. There are those that consider it among the greatest games of always. That is a debate we are not ready to go into right now.
With the success of the entire franchise since its first release, there is no reason why fans should not keep an eye on the release of the 4th game in the franchise after the release of the third. Here is all we know for now:
Dark Souls 4 Release Date
As stated above, shortly after the release of the Dark Souls 3, Miyazaki revealed in an interview that for the foreseeable future, FromSoftware is not going to work on anything further on the franchise. Essentially, the Dark Souls 4 may have to wait for a very long time before it will be released, that is if it will ever be released.
With that said, nothing has changed since we are yet to get an announcement on the release date. Looking at the previous releases with gaps of 2 years between them, one would expect that a release date would be given in at the E3 2017 or 2018, but both have come and gone with nothing said about the game. But then, there is no surprise to this since Miyazaki has slipped a little already about the status of the game.
What this obviously means is that there is still yet to be any teasers or things like that since no work has started in the development of the game yet at this stage, at least to public knowledge.
Announcements and Rumors
FromSoftware announced the release date for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice at E3 2018. Because the last decade has seen the developers working around Dark Souls games, there are a lot of people that believe the new game may also have something to do with the franchise.
It is easy to understand fans believing that because even when Fromsoftware made Bloodborne, it did not stray away from the Dark Souls mold. Nevertheless, the game is coming as something entirely different.
Since 2016 when it released the Dark Souls 3, FromSoftware has not made any significant official announcement on the future of the game. However, as already stated above, Hidetaka Miyazaki revealed in an interview that he was thinking of making Dark Souls 3 to be the last game in the series. The worst part of the revelation was that the idea was not only that of Miyazaki but also that of FromSoftware as they are looking for a way of starting something new for the future.
If that is anything to go by, Dark Souls 4 may be something that we may never get to see since the developers have stated that it is moving to newer things and the third game is the start of the new evolution it is embarking on.
In a separate interview, he stated that for remastering the game, it is not in the jurisdiction of FromSoftware but rather that of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Because of how much he wants to get away from the game, he said any remastering of the game by Sony may be from another developer entirely. However, the remaster which was released in 2018 was developed by Fromsoftware.
See Also: Bloodborne 2 Release Date, Trailer, News, Announcements, and Rumors
Before any other news can be heard on whether the developers of the game can still have their minds back on the game, we would have to wait for 2019 in the least after the release of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice which will be released on March 22. For now, the entire effort is at seeing that the game it is working on comes out great.
What we want to see in the Dark Souls 4
We are clear with the stands of FromSoftware, but since Bandai Namco, the worldwide publishers of the game, are yet to make any statement on the status of the Dark Souls 4, we are hoping that it is considering further works on the game. If that is true, there are a few things that we would like to see with the fourth part of the series.
Something slightly different
In all the previous games in the Souls series, there has not been any serious shift from the idea of the game. If the 4 also follows the same path, there is the feeling that it may not be as good as it could have been if it came with the same core, but still something slightly different.
There has been the suggestion that bringing together the worlds of Bloodborne and Souls in the Dark Soul 4 in the same universe will be something worthwhile. We think that will be great too as a way of improving the game and introducing something different.
Better Maps
The navigation map of the Dark Souls 4 should be better than what the three installments have thus far delivered. Movements have been greatly limited even though you can be taken to different places in the game, navigating around yourself is very limited so an improvement on that will be something we want to see.