Dark Souls 3 is out in Japan, but it doesn’t arrive in Australia until April 12. If you’re an Xbox One owner, however, there’s a way to start playing it right now, so long as you’re willing to jump through a few hoops.
In short, if you buy the Japanese version, you can start playing in English.
There are a couple of different ways to pull this off, based on people who have already pulled the trigger.
There’s this way, courtesy of bidguy on NeoGAF:
Or this way, via calebkeith on reddit:
It’s a little funky, so you might have to futz around, but it seems to work.
Some players have worried Microsoft will ban folks who are taking advange of this loophole. Here’s what a Microsoft spokesperson told me:
Although Xbox One games are not region locked, which means there are no technical limitations that would prevent them from being used in any country, Microsoft does not condone importing Xbox One games outside of official launch markets.
Uh huh.
You can breathe easy, however. I asked around, and was told Microsoft has no interest in punishing diehard fans who buy Dark Souls 3. Praise the sun.
Comments
29 responses to “Dark Souls 3 Can Be Played Right Now On Xbox One (Using A Region Trick)”
I’d be tempted, but the multiplayer pool is going to be so small until the western launch.
Man, so tempting. Good thing I haven’t finished DS2 yet, I can just play that instead!
can be done on ps4 too. just create an account in jap region.
Yep, and if you add the jap account to your PS4 and make it “your primary PS4” you should be able to play DS3 under your regular account.
!!!
Praise the sun!
Yep. It’s how I got my Hotline Miami 2 trophies on my main account. Never let a pesky little thing like international licensing agreements get in the way of your gaming.
‘Just’ create an account in JP region…
*stares at hieroglyphs*
Err… uh. Hm.
do you even ps4!@
Obviously not! Or at least if I do… I do very badly.
This will happen more and more, region locking historically only applied to physical software and even though that’s no longer the case (with a couple of exceptions) there will always be some form of ‘soft lock’ on the hardware.
Hardware without any sort of tether to an account system – eg DS Lite – could be ‘truly’ unlocked but stuff that needs to talk to a store that you in your country can buy from has to be ‘regionalised’ to you. Even Steam applies region locking while still just allowing customers to use USD.
I’d imagine one day a console/service that is truly unlocked would have to use a credit or points-based system that accepts all currencies for fixed amounts, in turn removing the safety net consumers can usually rely on in their countries of origin when purchasing.
Ps4 is already region free for physical discs.
*blinks* But… but I was going to get this on PC…
I’m waiting for Dark Souls 1 to be backward compatible.
It went up this morning – praise the sun!
For anyone concerned about having their account locked- I buy ALL 80% of my games from the US Store.
Once I bought Project CARS from the US Store, and because the US are behind us timewise (and that title was launching in other markets before the US), I actually had the reverse of this situation and couldn’t play the game even though it was out in Australia.
While I was trying to unlock it, I accidently re-bought the game from the Aussie store.… because buying the pre-order from the US (where the game was still available for pre-order) and the released game from Australia count as separate sale items.
Now, you can cancel a pre-order right up until the game launches, but to do that I had to call the Aussie Xbox helpline and ask that they cancel my US region pre-order but keep the Aussie release on my account.
Long story short- they didn’t give a shit, I just explained that I’d “accidently” bought the game from the US store and they happily refunded my account. They clearly aren’t too worried about the practice.
Yep – I USED to get all my games from the US, but the exchange rate has made it a bit less palatable recently. I still keep some USD in credit for if/when there’s a particularly good deal come up. Still have my full library ready for me, even when switching back to AU.
You’ve been able to do this for years. For XBOne you can buy a game for any region as long as there’s valid billing/payment details set up on your account for it.
(A good guide to setting ’em up is here: http://goo.gl/k6mxTS – however, Paypal doesn’t seem to work, I just use prepaid credits now.)
I check prices in other regions (a good comparison tool is here: http://goo.gl/hfw0iq ), and buy prepaid credit codes from MS’ own online store in that region – you get an email instantly that way. Buy from that region on Xbox.com & cheaper games for me!!
The console will still automatically download the game in whatever region your console is set to (assuming it’s available in that region).
For preorders, you gain access at the same time as wherever you made the purchase (so if you get DS3 from Japan, it’s out now, but other regions will only become available as they’re “released”).
i’m seeing a lot of articles about this for the xbox one, but none for the ps4 – only comments from people saying it’s possible. are we sure it’s possible though? and that there’s an english option?
i would appreciate any help i can get on this; would love to play the game early.
Well, I’ve set up a PS4 JP account, and seem to be able to buy it. But I’m thinking I might do a little research before committing to the sale.
Edit: Orrrrr… just finish Salt & Sanctuary while waiting.
i’ve set up the japanese ps4 account – do i need to accept it as the primary account on the system? i’m trying to figure out how i’d be getting the english copy. any and all help you or anyone can provide on this would be greatly appreciated
also: it’s funny you should mention salt and sanctuary. i figured that was a good idea to tide me over, so i went back to it last night and got up to level 87 before the game randomly crashed on me and now my save file is ‘corrupted’. hopped on the internet and realized this has happened to numerous people. ska studios really dropped the fucking ball on this game.
I think it works the other way around. You tell the PSN that this PS4 is the primary PS4 for the account you’re logging into, rather than the account is the primary account for the PS4.
After researching: Buying the game in the AU store merely pre-orders and doesn’t charge to your account, meaning that there’s nothing charged for your JP account to pick up and download. (Can confirm this one is true for me.) Apparently if you want to do the early download, you’ll need to log into the JP account, buy from the JP store, then log out and go to the AU(EU) account to download. This does, however, mean having multiple accounts where your products are tied to. Not necessarily that much of a bad thing I guess…
play in glorious minus 30 fps TODAY!
Anyone know if, after purchasing it on a dummy account, whether I can jump back over to my main account to play?
Also, excuse my ignorance, but will my game language be set to Japanese?
Not sure on the language thing, but you use the “Activate as your primary PS4 feature” for the dummy account, and that lets other accounts on the same PS4 play its games.
The language is fully English, dialog, menus, the works. Am playing now with zero issues.
Really? So even the spoken dialogue is English? Would you mind PMing me or something and filling me in on any intricacies that the article may have missed?
not sure if you’ve been helped since this post, but could you possibly respond to this comment and let me know if you can help me out. i would very very much like to play the game today but am in the same boat as you, serfaboy. i would really appreciate the help
Hey mate, I’ve not given it a shot yet. Unfortunately I don’t have any extra information and have just decided to hold off. As spending $90+ dollars on a game just isn’t something I want to do, at the risk of something going wrong. You know?
I MUST HAZ ERRY GAME DA MILLISECOND THEY R RELEASEDED SOZ I CAN BRAG ON D FORUMZ N GROW MY PEEN.
Hi, i tried this on xbox but i got stuck on the creditcard part, so i put in the adress of the us but i still need a creditcard, i don’t have, is this still possible?
I just got suspended from Xbox Live for a week for “illegally altering my account to play a game prior to the release date specific to my region.” Wat lol