Earlier this week, an interview with Dark Souls’ director Hidetaka Miyazaki suggested that From Software was considering “another difficulty that everyone can complete” for its brutally-hard RPG. The comment circulated quickly around the internet and caused enough attention for Namco Bandai to issue a correction of sorts, stating that suggestions of an “easy mode” were a result of a “mistranslation”.
Metro in the UK was the source of the original statement and interview and a follow-up story from the same outlet details Namco Bandai’s response, which contains a “correct” translation of the director’s comments.
For comparison purposes, here’s the quote from the first story (emphasis mine):
“This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about whether I should prepare another difficulty that everyone can complete or carefully send all gamers the messages behind our difficult games.”
And here’s the correctly-translated version from Namco Bandai (again, emphasis mine):
“This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about how to make everyone complete the game while maintaining the current difficulty and carefully send all gamers the messages behind it.”
Metro isn’t exactly buying what Namco Bandai is selling, but there’s not much that can be done now to discern the true intentions of Miyazaki’s words. Forbes feels he may have simply been thinking out loud, or the developer’s words were “poorly phrased”.
While it’s possible the publisher took the opportunity to “correct” Miyazaki by claiming he was mistranslated, it’s really neither here nor there. Namco Bandi and From Software have submitted their formal response to the media and that response says there are no plans to introduce “another difficulty”. If they go back on this in the future, sure, whip out the virtual pitchforks, but for now, the argument is basically dead in the water.
Miyazaki backtracks over Dark Souls Difficultly Level [Metro]
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