A 2D Dark Souls was rejected by Bandai Namco

Thomas Feichtmeir, the famous pixel artist behind games such as Blasphemous, The Mummy Demastered, and Song of Conquest, has shared a picture of a 2D Dark Souls on which he once worked. According to Feichtmeir, the project was pitched to Bandai Namco 6 years ago, and due to a non-disclosure agreement they hadn’t been able to speak about it until today.

The idea was to transform Dark Souls 3 into a 2D metroidvania, dripping with pixelart love. Speaking to Kotaku, Feichtmeir said: “The art was created around 2016 as everyone wanted to have a cool 2D, Souls-like Metroidvania, as the genre was new and the hunger for a game like this was strong, Of course someone had to try a pitch to Bandai Namco.” In tweet, he also revealed that “Pitches like this are often made for any IP, some of them become games. It's quite a normal business practice.”

The artist stated that From Software was not involved at all in the decision, since the IP belongs to Bandai Namco and they were the only people they pitched the game to. He also admitted that he doesn’t know the reasons why the pitch was rejected, but in any case the experience wasn’t useless: from it lots of ideas and designs were created that would eventually come to light in other games.

“A lot of people [on Twitter] pointed out that this looks a lot like Blasphemous…” he said. “They are right and it also makes a lot of sense, as a few years later I actually would work on Blasphemous as an artist,”

Other 2D soulslikes

While back then we would have killed for a 2D soulslike, nowadays we have a lot to quench our thirst. Salt and Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Ender Lillies, and of course Blasphemous, amongst many more… But let’s be honest, we’d still kill for a 2D version of Dark Souls 3 with Feichtmeir behind the wheel. You can never have too many Souls.

Source | Kotaku