Demon’s Souls turned out to be quite the phenomenon – so much so that it was remade into a fancy launch title for the PlayStation 5. However, Sony did not hold it in high regard, so developer FromSoftware didn’t want the corporation to publish the follow-up game, Dark Souls.
While this news is not surprising to those who know of the Souls franchise history, it was confirmed by former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida during a Sacred Symbols podcast (via VGC). Initial playtests were mostly negative for Demon’s Souls, mostly due to the game being incredibly difficult. Due to this, Sony passed on publishing the title in certain territories, with Atlus taking on the role in North America and Bandai Namco picking up the slack in Europe.
FromSoftware, which thought Sony would publish the game globally, was upset by this neglect and passed on having PlayStation’s owner publish Dark Souls. Yoshida states, “FromSoftware was already working on the sequel, but they were so disappointed with how PlayStation treated them, we wanted to work with them again but they passed on it.” Instead, FromSoftware partnered with Bandai Namco again, which published the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring.
Thankfully, Sony learned the error of its ways, most likely due to the surge in popularity for Demon’s Souls thanks to a bevy of streamers getting their butts kicked online. It would eventually work with FromSoftware again to create the beloved Bloodborne. Also, in a move that showed it was sorry for dropping the ball, Sony had Bluepoint remake Demon’s Souls for the PlayStation 5, which remains one of the console’s main selling points to this day.
Sadly, Sony has recently gone back to treating FromSoftware poorly, as it failed to recognize Bloodborne‘s upcoming tenth anniversary during its last State of Play. The dream is dead regarding a Bluepoint remake on par with Demon’s Souls, but I still hold out hope Bloodborne will get a 60 FPS patch sometime in March with the slightest bit of fanfare.