Trivia / Demon's Souls

• Approval of God: Miyazaki was very pleased with how the Remake turned out; being especially impressed with its increased graphical prowess and its team exploring avenues "he originally didn't think about".
• Creator Backlash: Not the game itself, but rather how it was treated is one for Sony Interactive Entertainment. Poor play-testing responses and critic reviews caused Sony to dismiss the game as being the last remnant of the maligned Kutaragi era of the PS3, refusing to attach their name to it for the western release by other publishers. Sony's Shuhei Yoshida would later admit that this was a huge mistake, and the company seriously undervalued the game prior to launch. It reportedly had single-handedly caused a shift within SIE toward trusting their developers more. Sony has since attempted to redeem their standing toward the game by working twice more with director Hidetaka Miyazaki and contracting Bluepoint Games to develop a full graphical remake of it.
• Fountain of Expies: Countless elements in this game would be reused with a few tweaks in the Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne, often more than once (and in the case of some NPCs, with the same voice actor):
  • A Mysterious Waif who resides in the Hub Level and levels you up, taking after the Maiden in Black (the Fire Keepers, the Emerald Herald, and the Plain Doll).
  • The jaded and depressed knights in the starter hub (the Crestfallen Warrior, Crestfallen Saulden, Hawkwood the Deserter) were based on the original Crestfallen Warrior.
  • The bulky hooded women who attack you wielding an oversized weapon (Maneater Mildred, Melinda the Butcher, Isabella the Mad) were based on Executioner Miralda.
  • The bosses that wield powerful magic attacks, move by teleporting, and spawn illusory duplicates to confuse and overwhelm you (Pinwheel, the Crystal Sage) were based on the Fool's Idol.
  • The unseen NPCs, implied to be talking birds, who will reward you with treasure in exchange for specific items you drop in their nests (Snuggly the Crow, Dyna and Tillo, the Nestling) were based on Sparkly the Crow from the Shrine of Storms.
  • The flying demonic bosses that gang up on you when you enter their high-altitude lairs (the Bell Gargoyles, the Belfy Gargoyles) were based on the Maneaters.
  • The fallen kings you have to put out of their misery (Gwyn, Vendrick, the Ivory King, Yhorm, although Vendrick is optional and the Ivory King is DLC) were based on Allant. The Ivory King even borrows heavily from Allant's moveset.
• In Memoriam: Demon's Souls remake was dedicated to two people: Takeshi "Ken" Kajii, the co-producer who was pivotal to the original game's development and eventual release, who died in 2013; and Andrew O'Neil, Bluepoint's co-founder and vice president who died in June 2019.
• Killer App: Not the original, but the announcement of its remake as an exclusive for the PlayStation 5 garnered lots of interest from Souls-like RPG fans who were otherwise uninterested in the other games the console had to offer, much like Bloodborne for the PS4 had done years prior. Especially since the original game was locked to the PS3 as a result of the PS4 lacking backwards compatibility, and most of the mainstream interest in the game came after the success of its spiritual sequels. And unlike games like Horizon Forbidden West and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, it wasn't announced to be receiving a PlayStation 4 release and was revealed to be a launch title for the PlayStation 5, thus leading a lot of fans to look to it as the first PS5 game to really show what the console is capable of.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Sony wanted an open-world, medieval fantasy game that appealed to the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion audience, but a Troubled Production and a lack of vision led to Hidetaka Miyazaki taking over and making the game we know today.
• Network to the Rescue: After Sony refused to publish the game in the US due to its low sales and niche appeal, Atlus released it instead. Likewise, Bandai-Namco published it in Europe since ATLUS doesn’t have a European branch, and Namco would later take on international publishing duties for Dark Souls after Sony refused to fund any sequels to Demon's Souls.
• No Dub for You: The PS3 version of Demon's Souls was released in Japan with the original English dialogue.
• Sleeper Hit: Developed by a relatively small and obscure developer, released at a time when numerous big titles were coming out, absolutely no advertising or fanfare, Nintendo Hard... and still sold well. Enough to qualify for a Greatest Hits hits release and extend the lifetime of the servers. Also, a critical hit, scoring The Game of the Year at both IGN and Gamespot.
• Stillborn Franchise: Kind of. FromSoftware made the first Dark Souls game due to Sony holding the rights to the Demon's Souls brand and they weren't interested in working again with them due to its low sales in Japan. Ironically, the Dark Souls games would prove to be highly successful and form a huge, dedicated following. Sony ends up regretting their choice of not publishing Demons' Souls in North America and would work with From again to make Bloodborne.
• Troubled Production: The game was initially conceptualized as a first-person fantasy game, similar to Elder Scrolls, presumably due to Sony wanting to capitalize on the popularity of Oblivion. However, there was a general lack of direction on the project that left it in pretty dire straits until director Hidetaka Miyazaki took over and retooled pretty much everything about it. He didn't feel the game could really compete with Oblivion and opted to take the game in a different direction more in line with his tastes. He eventually succeeded in persuading Sony to go through with his change in direction, although he had to obscure certain details about the game design because he feared Sony wouldn't approve of them.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: No, increasing the luck stat does not affect rare drop rates, it rather increases the odds of any given enemy dropping something period. The confusion occurs because high luck players do see an increase in the number of common drops...which is statistically exactly what should be occurring.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Monumental was originally able to be killed, rather than be immortal. It had both a death animation and dialogue for when it was killed.
  • The now infamous Broken Archstone was to lead to an area called the Northern Limits, a massive maze-like fortress in the midst of a frigid tundra, possibly besieged by a snowstorm. The enemy loadout for the area is unknown, but the list of cut enemies can give an idea: werewolf, werebear, and werehyena warriors; owl mages; serpent man soldiers and archers; a strange creature mimicking a humanoid bust, which would be able to attempt to eat anyone who got close to it; a yeti-like creature with a mouth for a stomach; an aristocratic woman, covered in insects and wielding a serpentine staff, known by her model name as "wandering daemon (unclean)"; an unknown aristocratic man carrying a cane, who may have been a friendly NPC.
  • There is a model for an unknown child, supposedly the son of the Filthy Woman in the Valley of Defilement. The reasoning behind said child being cut is simple: being able to kill children in video games is a huge taboo the world over.
  • An NPC calling herself Tell All was to appear in the Nexus after defeating one major boss, functioning as an information merchant. Her character model was finally found, depicting her wearing the Rogue's Set with the Assassin's Mask and wielding a Kris Blade. Oddly enough, her item drops are the same as the ones for Mephistopheles, not the Kris Blade. That said, the two share the same voice actress.
  • There is cut dialogue from a woman who may have been Stockpile Thomas' daughter.
  • Mephistopheles originally had a request to kill Stockpile Thomas.
  • A cut map section of the Shrine of Storms was found, showing that the area was going to be a stage longer. Said area appears to be a ruined village on the coast/cliffside, with a path leading up to the first stage of the area as depicted in the final game.
  • The biggest piece of cut content is something known as "True Death" mode, which was found in the text dump. Whether it was an optional hardcore mode or part of the original game is unknown. Essentially, dying in soul form would cause something like a perma-death, but instead of deleting your character and starting the game over entirely, the character would automatically re-spawn with either all or a certain amount of progress lost. The way it is worded, it is not clear if everything would have been lost, or if obtained gear would remain but simply got de-leveled. Reaching your bloodstain would restore you back to your human form, but dying in soul form would have bound you to a stone monolith of some sort.