However, he is impressed with From Software’s multiplayer in the brutal dark fantasy game Dark Souls, and hopes other Japanese developers take notice and gain some inspiration from the game.
Bleszinksi believes that with retail disc-based games, multiplayer has become paramount as a tool to combat used game sales. ”I’m not saying tack multiplayer onto every game,” he explained, ”But, for instance, Shadows of the Damned, that was a wonderfully crazy adventure, the dialogue had me laughing out loud, just even the key-door systems in there; it was a beautifully crazy game with really fun gameplay, but no multiplayer co-op experience in there.”
”I’m not saying tack on a versus mode,” he added, ”There’s a billion different ways you can do some sort of ‘players interacting with other players’ mode.”
Bleszinski went on to hold the original Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls as an example of creative, innovative use of multiplayer.
”That’s ironically one of the most innovative games with what we call “mingle player” that has had those kinds of blending and blurring of single player and multiplayer – and it came from Japan!,” he praised. ”So clearly some of the developers over there get that, because that game is going to continue to inspire a lot of Western developers to figure ways that you can have connected elements in campaign games, and have more of a blended experience.”
Dark Souls was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 last October, and earned an 8.0/10 score from Strategy Informer’s review. The “Prepare to Die Edition” of Dark Souls is hitting PC this August 2012.