Dark Souls 2 was in danger.
The game was broken, seemingly beyond repair.
An ambitious development plan, which featured the creation of a brand new engine from scratch,
had created a buggy, inconsistent mess that was all but unplayable.
The problem, at least in part, seemed to come from a lack of design focus.
Too many voices were involved in making senior creative choices, as two directors, Tomohiro
Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, were both jointly attempting to steer the project, with little
success.
Something had to change.
If Dark Souls 2 was going to be an adequate successor to the first game to bear this name,
it was going to need a drastic overhaul.
At this point, simply putting out a coherent game was enough to count as a success.
If something wasn't done soon, if the project wasn't set right, the game would collapse
entirely, and the Dark Souls series would end with only one and a half games.
This is the story of Dark Souls 2, and how one high profile game sequel was saved from
the brink of total destruction.
In retrospect, warning bells should have been sounding from the moment development began
on Dark Souls 2.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the developer who had spearheaded both Dark Souls and it's predecessor, Demon
Souls, was not going to be directing this new game.
Hidetaka's star was on the rise, and following the success of his previous work, he'd been
promoted within From Software, the company behind the games.
It seemed that Hidetaka’s interests lay elsewhere, as he was beginning work on a completely
different game named Bloodbourne.
Instead of getting involved heavily in Dark Souls 2, Hidetaka provided guidance in a hands-off
role as overseer of the project.
The role of director was handed to two veterans of From Software, Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui
Tanimura.
These developers had plenty of experience, and with the full might of From Software behind
them, everything should go swimmingly.
Right?
The team wanted to surpass the original Dark Souls, from both a technical and a gameplay
perspective.
So, naturally, the first thing they did was throw away the engine that had been used to
build their previous game.
The team was set to work building a whole new engine, completely from scratch, with
a focus on creating a piece of next-gen software that would allow the Souls series to continue
to grow as technology developed.
Of particular interest to the team was the lighting and graphics.
They wanted to create something that looked photorealistic, with shadows that danced around
the player in a believable fashion.
This, they hoped, would not only lend some semblance of believability to the game, but
would also add depth to the story’s focus on light and fire as metaphors for both progress,
and hope.
The initial plans for the Dark Souls sequel involved a frigid ice setting, up in frozen
mountains.
In a fit of overambition, however, the goal here was quickly widened.
The game would be set across multiple environments and areas, in a huge, expansive world that
would fill the player with awe and wonder.
This proved to be difficult enough on its own, without the added challenge of actually
building a game into this setting.
The first Dark Souls was known for its unforgiving difficulty, but this was also coupled with
a balanced, satisfying gameplay mechanic.
Not only was the game challenging, but it was also fun to play.
The new team, then, needed to replicate this experience.
Countless hours were spent developing bosses that would feel intimidating and tough, but
which followed a carefully structured difficulty curve so that the player never felt entirely
overwhelmed.
Considering the wide, open, branching structure of the game, this was no easy feat.
So, the team was working to build a brand new game engine, completely from scratch,
in order to create a sequel to an incredibly popular game.
And they needed to make the game difficult but fun.
All without clear guidance from a single director.
It was inevitable that things were going to fall apart.
Mid-way through development, the game was an unplayable mess.
The new engine was impressive, but its beefy power requirements meant that it couldn’t
run effectively on current generation gaming hardware.
Meanwhile, pockets of the game were well defined and polished – such as some characters and
environments – but overall, the joint direction style had left many elements of design horribly
incomplete.
It was clear that not only would this be an inadequate Dark Souls game, but it wouldn’t
be much of a game at all.
Without some big change, Dark Souls 2 was going to end up as a buggy, unbalanced, awkward
mess.
It could well never be completed at all.
Word from the Higher Ups at From Software came down.
The senior team at work on Dark Souls 2 was to be dramatically restructured.
Now, Yui Tanimura would serve as the sole director for the game.
His job?
To fix this mess.
Yui wasn’t expected to make the greatest video game in the history of the medium.
His task was simply to turn the huge, expensive, bloated mess of Dark Souls 2 into something
that might actually be playable.
This was a seemingly impossible task, and there was a lot riding on the success of the
project.
If Dark Souls 2 tanked, From Software’s flagship series could end up turning into
a joke before it had truly had a chance to pick up steam.
Tentatively, Yui set to work.
He had a lot of sleepless nights ahead of him…
There was no opportunity to completely trash everything that made up Dark Souls 2 and start
again.
From Software didn’t have unlimited resources, and this game already represented a significant
investment.
Not only was the newly restructured team expected to produce a solid game, but they had very
specific time constraints placed on their work.
They needed to get this game finished fast.
Thus, Yui’s main approach to fixing the game involved taking the parts that worked,
and stapling them together in the most logical fashion possible.
The game’s world was completely rebuilt, using the parts that had already been assembled.
These were stacked together in the most coherent manner possible, with the aim of keeping alteration
or reworking to a minimum Then, there were the characters.
Many designs had already been at least partially completed, and in the absence of time, Yui
asked his creators to rework what already existed so that they could fill new roles.
This was not a fun task.
It involved the team leaving aside their preconceived ideas of what roles these characters were
designed for, and trying to cram them into new places.
Certain characters and enemies had to be reworked entirely.
Characters that were envisioned as comedic now became deadly serious, or saw their personalities
erased altogether.
As much as possible, Yui allowed his design team the freedom to control what happened
to their creations.
Nevertheless, a lot of hard decisions had to be made, and it wasn’t easy to rethink
everything about the game in this manner.
Many of these changes begat more changes.
Moving one enemy to a new location to fill a hole then left a new hole, and something
else had to go in this spot.
In spite of the complexity of the task at hand and its often frustrating nature, the
team worked well under Yui’s direction.
They were encouraged to think on their feet, and to adapt where necessary.
They were told not to shy away from dramatic changes to the game’s structure, and they
rose to the challenge even when this meant a lot more work.
One problem remained.
The game’s engine was still a nightmare.
No matter how much the game’s content was moved around, it was still impossible to get
it to actually run in a playable fashion.
So, the decision was made.
Heartbreaking as it was, the graphical quality of Dark Souls 2 had to be toned down.
The result wasn’t nearly as beautiful, but it meant the game ran at appropriate speeds,
and this was more important.
Dark Souls 2 debuted to the public, and received a generally favorable reaction.
This wasn’t the masterpiece that had been originally envisioned, but it was more Dark
Souls, and that was no bad thing.
Certain hardcore members of the fanbase picked up on the game’s weaknesses, but the wider
community saw it as yet another solid game.
Yui had achieved his goal.
He’d made something playable out of pieces of broken scrap, and it was an enjoyable enough
experience to win over the majority of critics.
The moral of the story is that sometimes survival is a success worth celebrating.
We all have bad days, or weeks, or months.
Things might not go our way, we’ll be constantly waylaid by unexpected pitfalls, and we’ll
find it difficult to make progress with the things that matter to us.
You may find yourself trapped, with your dreams moving further and further out of your reach.
At times like this, remember the lesson of Dark Souls 2.
It’s okay to have a rough patch.
This doesn’t mean you’ll never get where you’re going.
Take a moment to pause and analyze your situation.
Sometimes, it’s enough to be able to say that you’re still trying, and that you won’t
give up.
Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Even if today is not your day, as long as you keep moving forward, you’re still on
the road to triumph.