Dark Souls Interview

Gamasutra managed to track down Namco Bandai's Andrew Davis for a brief article-style interview about their goals for Dark Souls and the subtle differences that exist between it and its predecessor, Demon's Souls.
"Dark Souls is a more fully-realized world of seamless transitions in between these areas," Davis explains. "They're all connected to each other in different ways."

And the environments are more varied, presenting a number of different challenges. "You could have narrow paths on cliffs, or wide-open areas, or a castle filled with traps. Some places are in complete darkness," he says.

Players will get to use a system that treats bonfires in the game as places of respawning and gathering. Players can recharge at bonfires, but defeated enemies and conquered obstacles will also be revived.

"It still has the mechanic where you can die and lose everything," says Davis. "But if you've been paying attention, you'll be able to work your way back cautiously and regain all the souls that you lost."

The appeal in the game's ruthlessness recalls the era of 8 and 16-bit adventure RPGs, he suggests, with sprawling interconnected areas and a high degree of precision necessary to make progress.