Souls series: needs an installment set in the future or modern times

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

Now, I know what your thinking, it'd be dudebro crap or so, but hear me out first.

Imagine a souls game, where the traps are more modern, the enemies far more capable of killing you, and weaponry generally being ranged, but with a few melee options. Think of traps like in the cube movie series, like acid spraying cans linked to a sweat detector or a even a rudimentary shotgun linked to the knob of a door.

It'd be slower paced, but I think the atmosphere could be pulled off. Perhaps set it in a dirlict space station or city.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I think Victorian times/early 1900s are about as futuristic as you can get with the gameplay the series has established, see Bloodborne. If you really wanted to stretch it, you could perhaps make a 1920's noir setting work, but the world would have to have really contrived reasons to not just discharge firearms constantly. It'd be hard to build that slow, heavy atmosphere of constant danger when you'd just have ranged combat everywhere.

I've got an idea. Instead of changing time period, how about we change the setting instead? Feudal Japan or the Orient maybe? Or an Arabic setting, in the crusades perhaps? Or hell, go to the really exotic and set the game in an African or Mayan style setting! All those could work excellently. It's really tiring when all we ever see in fantasy games are the same medieval Europe or the JRPG routine of forest/desert/volcano/sea/mountains etc.

 

[klaynexas3]

I was thinking about something along these lines, only it's like a cyberpunk future world, you'd be a cyborg of sorts, and of course it'd be a dystopian future, rogue programs or other cyborgs controlling the technology in the world trying to take control, you respawn because your mind is downloaded into the databases you rest at, but of course in a souls fashion it only saves parts of you, so the currency that you'd use to upgrade your tech would be lost on death, still on your old body. Perhaps, kind of like what Bloodborne or Salt and Sanctuary are doing, the monster that killed you stole that currency, and so you have to kill them to get it back OR your body could be hacked by some virus, and come to life to work for them, less efficiently of course due to its lack of actual sentience.

I had it a month or so ago, and I'd actually like to carry through with it. I think that the souls style gameplay could translate very well into a cyberpunk setting.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I think a huge problem to overcome by setting a Souls game in the present/future is keeping the feeling of the original games. Keep that atmosphere of oppression and loneliness and hopelessness. This is easier to do in the fantasy past setting because the world is just not as connected. There's no instant communication or technology around, so things feel much more separated. I'm not saying that this feeling can't be done, because it has been done before in the future, but for a Souls game, it would be tricky.
Also, the sense of mystery would be tricky to get a handle on. With the future, science will have no doubt made huge advances. The Undead Curse might still be around, but by then it will be a well known fact and it will be known how to deal with it. Like how the Reapers were eventually defeated because each race slowly learned from the previous ones. Kingdoms would slowly learn about the Undead Curse, and eventually it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I'm not saying that the Undead Curse has to be in the game, but something like it does. Some sort of...illness, be it a creature or an actual illness, needs to be there causing things to fall apart, and science cannot hold the answer, because that will take away the fun. Dead Space kind of comes close to this, but as soon as the series explains how the Marker is doing what it's doing and why, that feeling of oppression goes way down.

 

[Muspelheim]

Eh... Perhaps. But I think it'd lose a lot without the Renaissance aestethic. That is what made it stand out as much as it did to me. It was like being stuck in a decaying Hieronymus Bosch painting. The design choices, the thick atmosphere... That's what made it what it was to me.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Thetriumphofdeath.jpg

The more I think of it, the more I feel this painting (Bruegel, t.E.) encapsulates the Souls experience. Or rather, the Souls experience is showing up on that painting a bit later when everyone is gone and you're alone with the pieces left behind.

(And that is also why I think it's misguided to try to keep cultural territories, as it were, apart, considering that the Souls series' fantastic atmosphere is the result of Japanese developers tackling European folklore. But that is a different matter)

That feeling of approaching dread could probably be recreated in a different time period, but it'd be a very awkward shift by this point. They've struck a very fertile furrow, so to speak, and it'd be a mistake to move away from it entirely. All that said, though, it's a very individual opinion. the Souls series simply struck a cord in me that I happened to have.

EDIT: In brief; no, I don't think it should. It'd cast off so much of its rich heritage in the process.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I can't see a modern-day iteration of Souls. Maybe a futuristic one. But I'm not crazy about the idea. I like the fantasy setting. And Bloodborne's a nice spin-off.

 

[baddude1337]

Not sure how a modern setting would work, unless ammo was really scarce and it was more of a melee based game.

I wouldn't like to see it happen to the Soul's series itself, but one with similar style gameplay being set in an modern apocalyptic setting would be good. Similar but perhaps more fast paced melee combat being the order of the day. Perhaps instead of Humanity or Human Effigies we get bullets for guns instead, which are very very rare, and the monsters can be mutants instead of demons. Unless it was a demonic apocalypse.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

You definitely lose the tense, cat and mouse style combat. Strike, counter, dodge, defend is replaced with shoot, hit, hide behind wall, repeat.

You'd need to have highly mobile, quite intelligent AI that sets ambushes that you must predict rather than the shambling zombie sort of AI that most of the enemies in the Souls games have. This is necessary to retain the sense of danger that the Souls games aim for.

When you launch your first strike, the period of hesitation in the rest of the group of enemies would have to be enough to perhaps clear them if you're fast enough but quick so as to make that a challenge.

The enemy mobility would have to be matched by your own as well. There needs to be a lot of verticality to the maps and encounters. This sounds like a phenomenally hard game to get correct.

 

[RJ 17]

I don't think it would work. The Souls games have rather diverse and interesting enemies. What would a more modern game have? Dude with a gun, slightly different dude with a gun, maybe a robot if you go towards the future.

That and bringing guns into the mix would just make it another 3rd person shooter...likely forced to be cover-based considering that - if you kept the traditional difficulty of the combat - you'd get shot to pieces by doing something as silly as not taking cover. We've got enough cover-based 3rd person shooters as it is.

I'm not even a big fan of the Souls games, but I do know that the fanbase is extremely dedicated and loyal. I'd imagine they'd be quite upset with such a massively drastic change to the formula they've come to know and love.

My biggest question to this idea is "...why?" If the answer is "just because" then I'm afraid that doesn't quite cut it.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I agree that a modern setting just wouldn't work. There is no mystery in the world anymore. But what about a post-apocalypse? Sort of like Fallout, but with even less civilization. This lets you use modern or future guns and technology, maybe even have some sort of techno magic left over from the old world, but you can make all this as scarce as you want. And a world full of irradiated mutants or disease-ridden maniac survivors gives you the dark, decaying setting that Souls has perfected.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Wouldn't work. It would turn into a mostly ranged affair, and that cuts most of Dark Souls' tension. It would basically become a cover-based shooter, and those don't come anywhere near the glory of Dark Souls.

 

[Zenfnord]

The only thing From has much experience in in futuristic games is Mecha games, so I'm sure they could find it within themselves to make a Mecha Souls game, if they thought there was anything there. I'm not really sure there is, though.

Mechas wielding futuristic energy swords and such would be cool, as long as you could come up with some kind of pointless narrative reason why missle weapons aren't a huge factor.

Edit: A Steampunk Mecha Souls game might be able to strike a good balance, though.

 

[Jak2364]

I think I kinda get what you mean, and I somewhat agree. It'd be pretty cool to have a Souls style game with The Secret World or Shadow Realms' aesthetic. People are saying it would deteriorate into a ranged affair but it'd be extremely easy to justify nullification of those types of weapons by just saying bullets aren't very effective against demons or whatever other supernatural creatures the players have to fight. Or make it more post-apocalyptic and have guns become a very rare commodity, something that can save your ass in a bind but you really have to be careful when you decide to use it. Dying Light had some pretty tense combat when fighting other humans, and it kinda reminded me of a First-Person translation of the Souls' series basic mechanics of stamina management.

 

[Drizzitdude]

I wouldn't be interested in it at all.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don't know, DS is much better melee. A similar combat system but being mostly ranged would not be fun to me although being a modern setting (or just different, there are many settings you could do that don't have effective guns) would be fine.

Edit: one thing I do hope they do is make more enemies "smart" like the npc invaders.

 

[cleric of the order]

what in the name of heaven is this "dudebro". It sounds like it should be offensive to a couple acquiescence of mine.
And personally I think no matter what argument you can dredge up for this, it's the dev's call.
I have a lot of faith in Mr Hidetaka Miyazak, he has made the series and he will add to it as he wishes.
He's earned the right to pilot this series with blood and souls, until this pale hope shatters.
Also I don't think the MECHANICS of a soul game fits MODERN gunplay.
Seriously

would he doe that, I mean if he sees it fit it could work but how much of this is actually going to /be/ a souls game, why would they do this what so ever.
You might want to expand on this OP.
I do not see these truths as self evident, you might as well just make your own vaguely survival horror spectacle fighter.
But I suppose it could work

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I don't understand what part of this hypothetical game is a "souls game".

It sounds like you are primarily focusing on traps for some bizarre reason, despite them never really being that big of a deal. It was the melee combat and the setting that were what set the games apart (and the difficulty), without them I don't see what connection this has to the original games.

 

[Fox12]

Eh, they'd have to change the game play, buy I trust Miyazaki, so he can make whatever he wants and I'll probably play it. At that point, they may as well just make a new IP, though. I don't see the point of having it under the Souls brand anymore, they'd have nothing in common.