Dark Souls Remastered Features More Tweaks And Changes Than You'd Expect

When you see the word "remastered" you instantly expect upgraded textures, 4K resolution support and/or 60 fps. In the case of Dark Souls Remastered, that's all in there, but there are actually a lot of gameplay changes and fixes that might make the Dark Souls experience worth replaying.

First off, organizing matches with friends will be easier than before. On its initial release, pairing up with specific players (i.e. friends) in Dark Souls felt like you needed a lot of luck to pull it off. Dark Souls Remastered will make use of the Password Matching feature introduced in Dark Souls 2 for organizing co-op sessions.  

Strength In Numbers

The max number of players in an online session will be increased from 4 to 6. This will hopefully encourage some more chaos into matches and co-op. In addition, the Arena will also now support 3v3 teams and six-player death matches, together with password matching and randomized respawn points.

Restrictions have been added to PVP as well. The only healing items that you can use are your Estus Flasks, plus invading phantoms will have to work with having their Estus Flask count cut in half. Other changes include letting players prevent matched red phantom players from seeing the "White Sign Sopstone" and players can no longer summon ally phantoms consecutively when in a fight with enemy phantoms (i.e. other players.)

But the best change is probably the switch from P2P matching to dedicated servers for online multiplayer. That hopefully means reduced cheating and improved stability for online sessions. Other quality of life improvements include the ability to use more than one item at once by setting how many will be used, so you can say goodbye to sore thumbs from spamming the use button. Also, Covenants can now be changed at any time at bonfires you've discovered. A welcome change for any veteran of Dark Souls. 

Add a few texture and lighting improvements and you have an appealing version of an action RPG released back in 2011. If you somehow missed the first Dark Souls game, I highly recommend it. After going through the second and third game plus Bloodborne, the first game still holds strong thanks to the great level design and memorable boss fights. 

Dark Souls Remastered is coming out on May 25 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

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