Dark Souls dev: "Prepare to die!"

While other game presentations are so slick developers' barely suffer a scratch in the run-through, From Software don't make anything easy, even on itself.

Watching the Dark Souls studio repeatedly die in the fifteen minute presentation, laughter echoing from producer Kei Hirono as his colleague is cut, crunched, slammed and shunted by a horde of beasts in the first dungeon, is a marked change from an industry hell-bent on bending backwards to make sure players don't become frustrated.

We caught up with Hirono-san afterwards, with the producer mentioning the "die" and "difficult" repeatedly and in quick succession. Here's a feq quick clips from the interview:

On not making things easy for the player: "Our goal is not to make it simply difficult, but to make players overcome the difficulty for a better sense of satisfaction...happiness when you're able to overcome the challenges."

On learning monster patterns: "Every enemy will have their own weaknesses....working it out will take a lot of trial and error, a lot deaths."

On co-op being more voyeuristic torture than team-work: "The multiplayer system is very unique. There's no chat involved, there's a lot of hints in how other people die. That'll be a learning experience...and hopefully learn from other people's mistakes."

Click on the video to watch the full interview.