Dark Souls 2's graphics engine will allow clever use of shadows, expressions

Dark Souls 2's new graphics engine can apparently pull off some neat tricks. The game's co-Director Yui Tanimura told Polygon that the new engine will be able to handle more subtle expressions. While the game is getting a massive overhaul in graphics in general, there will be more subtle additions to the game.

"The idea of gimmicks in the game is now doable with this new engine," he said. "Things like representing an enemy that is perhaps off-screen but with movement of shadows, or that kind of expression in the game. It's something that [I] always wanted to do but wasn't able to do with the previous engine."

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Back in April, we learned that the PC version of Dark Souls 2 will be serving as the base for the other versions of the game. The PC version is said to run at a stable 60 fps. This is in stark contrast to the sloppy port of Dark Souls that was released last year and ran at 30 fps.

Dark Souls Director Hidetaka Miyazaki and Dark Souls 2 Director Tomohiro Shibuya had revealed back in January that the focus of Dark Souls 2 will be on having a better, more realistic atmosphere. The game will be set in the same world, but in a different area with different people.

Speaking about building a new world for Dark Souls 2 and how he'd like to evolve the experience of the previous games, Shibuya said, “Rather than focusing on shading and lighting technologies, I believe that having a more realistic atmosphere while showing better details of the monsters and their expressions would definitely have a bigger impact.”