| Demon's Souls | |
|---|---|
 Packaging artwork used for most regions | |
| Developer(s) | FromSoftware[a] |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Director(s) | Hidetaka Miyazaki |
| Producer(s) |
|
| Designer(s) | Takashi Nakamura |
| Programmer(s) | Jun Ito |
| Artist(s) |
|
| Writer(s) | Hidetaka Miyazaki |
| Composer(s) | Shunsuke Kida |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 3 |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Action role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Demon's Souls[b] is a 2009 action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware for the PlayStation 3 under the supervision of Japan Studio. It was published in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment in February, in North America by Atlus in October, and in PAL territories by Namco Bandai Partners in June 2010. The game is referred to as a spiritual successor to FromSoftware's King's Field series.
Demon's Souls is set in Boletaria, a kingdom consumed by a dark being called the Old One, following its release through the use of forbidden Soul Arts. Players take on the role of a hero brought to Boletaria to kill its fallen king Allant and pacify the Old One. Gameplay has players navigating five different worlds from a hub called the Nexus, with a heavy emphasis on challenging combat and mechanics surrounding player death and respawning. Online multiplayer allows both player cooperation and world invasions featuring player versus player combat.
The game's early development was troubled due to a lack of coherent vision. Despite such issues, FromSoftware designer Hidetaka Miyazaki was able to take over the project and helped to turn the game into what it eventually became. The game's difficulty was intended to both evoke classic video games and provide a sense of challenge and accomplishment for players. This aspect proved demanding for Miyazaki, partly because of his fear that Sony would ask the team to lower the difficulty in order to make the game more accessible.
Announced in 2008, early reactions to the Demon's Souls demo were seen as negative, and the game's high difficulty prompted Sony to pass on publishing the game outside of Japan. While the game met with middling reception and sales in Japan, it became a commercial and critical success in the West. The game was praised for its difficult combat and addictive gameplay, subsequently winning several awards. Demon's Souls introduced many of the core elements that would define the eventual Soulslike genre and it has since been cited as one of the greatest games of all time. Its success led to the spiritual successor Dark Souls, and a remake of the same name was released in 2020 for the PlayStation 5.
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