To the surprise of many, Sony elected to have Bluepoint Games' Demon's Souls Remake as one of its leading titles for the PlayStation 5's launch. This game was a faithful remake of FromSoftware's PS3 title, which can be credited for inventing the formula used by the Dark Souls series. Demon's Souls still holds up surprisingly well next to its successors, and Bluepoint's remake supplied returning fans with a lot of joy. Demon's Souls Remake also came at a time when FromSoftware was busy working on Elden Ring in private, so many fans were happy to have a "new" Souls-like game to tide them over.
According to recent rumors, it seems players have not seen the last of the Demon's Souls Remake. Sony is pursuing an initiative to port many of its largest games over to PC, and recent acquisitions and a conscious shift toward developing for both PlayStation and PC should speed this up. A big indicator of that was the Nvidia GeForce Now leak, which contained a list of both real and hypothetical games that may be coming in the future. Among these were several references to Sony first-party titles coming to PC, one of which was Demon's Souls. This seems like a great idea, and will probably be one of the highlights of PlayStation's transition into PC gaming.
PC Demon's Souls Would Unite the Souls Games
Demon's Souls joining the PC marketplace would feel like filling a gap that has existed for almost a decade. The first Dark Souls came to PC in August 2012, almost a year after its initial release on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011. Demon's Souls was released in 2009 for PS3, and stayed there until the PS5 remake in 2020. Aside from the Sony-published Bloodborne, all of FromSoftware's other Souls-likes have come out on PC day-and-date with or shortly after their console counterparts. The absence of Demon's Souls, the game that kicked the subgenre off, is keenly felt.
The same is true for the aforementioned Bloodborne. Bloodborne is considered by many to be one of the best games FromSoftware has made, and one of the PlayStation 4's best exclusives. Many fans feel Bloodborne needs a modern re-release that improves its performance. The game suffers from assorted framerate and graphical issues, and either a PS5 or PC port would offer the chance to solve these.
The fervor for a Bloodborne re-release is so strong that a fan modder even created a 60 FPS patch for use on the PlayStation 4 Pro. The hope for many upon seeing Demon's Souls potentially getting a PC port is that Bloodborne will follow. That way, all of FromSoftware's Souls-like offerings will be united on the same platform.
A PC Port of Demon's Souls Could Enhance the Game
The Demon's Souls Remake coming to PC fulfills the technical goals already established by the PS5 version. This remake was intended to make Demon's Souls look and play the best it ever had, and Bluepoint Games pulled this off with aplomb. Things that had previously been exclusive to emulator mods like increased resolution and framerate have become standard features in Demon's Souls, and a PC version would push these further. While it's hard to gauge how much better Demon's Souls could look on a high-end gaming PC, it would definitely retain all of the polish from the console version.
What better purpose could a PC port of Demon's Souls serve than to simply bring the game to a PC audience. This cult-classic action-RPG has a lot to offer, and just as many, if not more, secrets as the average Souls game. A PC port would expand the number of potential players online and offline, and would allow existing PC owners to get in on the action without investing in a PS5. It would be great if Demon's Souls had cross-play multiplayer, but that is a major feature that would be up to Sony and Bluepoint to implement. At any rate, if this rumored PC port is real, hopefully the Demon's Souls remake can reach a new audience on personal computers.
Demon's Souls is Ripe for Fan Modding
Demon's Souls coming to PC would not just benefit PC players who want to play the game, but PC users who want to modify it as well. Mods are extremely common for every FromSoftware Souls-like on PC. From new bosses to game rebalances or entirely new campaigns, mods have been flowing plentifully on PC for the Dark Souls franchise and Sekiro. While these do include cheats or modifications that help players beat the games, mods are often meant to provide new experiences for older players who know these titles well. Demon's Souls may be a couple of console generations old, but its presence on PC could breathe new life into it in ways not even its developers could expect.
Another front that the Demon's Souls Remake could help the community on is research. The fan community is fairly well known for turning their favorite games inside out, both in terms of lore and cut content. This scene is so active that even the PS3 Demon's Souls and Bloodborne have been hacked and thoroughly explored. A native PC port would help a lot in these endeavors, though there's no guarantee that Bluepoint left in all of Demon's Souls' cut content from its original release.
Still, even if that content has been removed from the files, players may still be able to mod some sort of new experience into the sixth Archstone using extracted PS3 assets. It wouldn't be the same as FromSoftware or Bluepoint making their own new Demon's Souls locale, but it would definitely go a long way toward making the remake feel even more distinct from the original.
Demon's Souls is available now on PS5.