Watch six minutes of new Dark Souls 3 gameplay

Dark Souls 3 is coming. At the end of March, the masochistic types among you will be able to put yourselves through the digital wringer, by playing the latest game from the evil buggers at FROM Software.

This time, it’s being directed by the devious mind of Hidetaka Miyazaki, so it shouldn’t be as *cough* soulless as Dark Souls II was. It could also be the very last “Souls” game.

“I don’t think it’d be the right choice to continue indefinitely creating Souls and Bloodborne games. I’m considering Dark Souls 3 to be the big closure on the series. That’s not just limited to me, but From Software and myself together want to aggressively make new things in the future,” Miyazaki said last year.

“Dark Souls 3 will mark the last game where the development project began before I became president. The next title will be a game that was conceived while I was president. I believe that From Software has to create new things. There will be new types of games coming from us, and Dark Souls 3 is an important marker in the evolution of From Software.”

It’s an odd thing to say, especially as it feels like the evolution of the Souls games is still happening. It’s something you can quite plainly see in this latest Dark Souls 3 footage, captured from a Livestream. You can quite clearly see that many of Bloodborne’s mechanics and ideas are spilling over in to Dark Souls – with bits of the world even looking like Old Yharnam.

You’ll notice the character – A thief – isn’t equipped with a shield, but is carrying two blades, not too dissimilar from Bloodborne either. The stream was private, and in Japanese – but has been saved for posterity by YouTuber Gilmore Mizzi. Much of the dialogue has also been translated by Reddit, if you’re keen to understand what all the Japanese means.

Last Updated: February 4, 2016