5 Options To Replace Dark Souls Gameplay

Mechanized Combat (Armored Core but with Souls mentality)

It’s hard to not just repeat “Armored Core, but like Dark Souls” over and over again, but it bears stating once; imagine with a mech combat game would operate like as a Dark Souls game. First off, because of the size of a mech armor compared to that of the traditional sword-and-board gameplay, the scope of the “battlefield” is enhanced. Because of that, you can use entire destroyed, desolate cities as battle locations, and perhaps even dictate territories.

Upgrading your mech would reflect various stats from the Souls series, but towards the core of your mech. The legs, casing, head, arms and weapons used by your mech would all get upgraded like equipment. Swords can be used, but the supplement of short-range projectiles would get a renewed focus. Instead of covenants, you could really explore PvP through the use of mech factions. While bonfiring to different locations wouldn’t quite make sense, the hub world could definitely show the character outside of the suit interacting with other NPCs.

The narrative framing for such a game would have to adapt from the Dark Souls style a little bit, unless they could find a way to hide lore through contextual environmental storytelling. That may get a bit more focus, as upgrades parts of a mech armor wouldn’t have as many opportunities to tell a story of mech warrior’s past. Regardless, an Armored Core type of game using this style of gameplay formula presents a myriad of challenges, but From Software are more than capable of handling them amicably.

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