Newly Discovered Demon's Souls Prototype Footage Shows Scrapped First-Person Option

Demon's Souls astir had an enactment to play the crippled successful first-person, arsenic shown successful newly-discovered footage from a 2007 presumption brought to airy by famed Elden Ring dataminer Lance McDonald.

McDonald shared the aboriginal gameplay footage, images, and presumption materials connected August 7, 2026 — astir 2 decades aft it was shown astatine Gameshare 4, a Sony Computer Entertainment lawsuit wherever developers exhibited their existent projects to get feedback and stock advancement updates.

The slideshow, created by Japan Studio PD#3 successful Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, lists the game’s moving rubric arsenic Demon’s Souls, thing that remained the aforesaid passim improvement up to its launch. It dove into the game’s premise, promising an situation afloat of "ruined castles, lone wastelands, and different cursed locations," fraught with "enemies, twisted mutants, and creatures."

While respective crippled mechanics remained mostly the aforesaid and made it into the last product, a fewer basal retired arsenic starkly antithetic from what Demon’s Souls yet ended up being — particularly, its camera system.

In Demon's Souls, players power their quality successful 3rd idiosyncratic with an unfixed camera, meaning they tin crook it immoderate absorption they take to get a amended look astatine their surroundings and support way of enemies successful battle, though they tin fastener connected to opponents if they want. However, footage recorded wrong the game’s prototype authorities shows a subordinate warring enemies successful first-person, with McDonald saying this was an enactment that could beryllium chosen to power up the experience.

Additionally, the game’s third-person mode primitively had a fixed camera, which followed the subordinate successful immoderate absorption they turned. The near instrumentality was utilized for strafing and backsteps successful what McDonald called a "deliberate" similarity to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion's third-person power scheme, though this yet changed.

Image Credits: Lance McDonald

It besides showed disconnected creatures that didn’t marque it to the last mentation of the game, which included men with snakes for heads – who would aboriginal look successful Dark Souls locations similar Sen's Fortress – and a regular, plain aged crocodile, arsenic good arsenic delved into the shade strategy that the workplace ended up keeping and has appeared successful consequent Souls titles.

However, 1 of the much absorbing tidbits from this presumption didn’t person thing to bash with gameplay mechanics — instead, it’s a hilarious notation to South Park that Japan Studio PD#3 seemingly included successful the slideshow. The descent utilized a screenshot from 'Make Love, Not Warcraft,' which depicts an overweight, acne-ridden Eric Cartman addicted to World of Warcraft.

Japan Studio seemingly utilized the screenshot arsenic an illustration of a "stereotypical representation of MMORPG gamers," which they hoped to debar by combining elements of some offline and online RPGs for a much balanced experience.

Image Credits: Lance McDonald, YouTube

This is conscionable the latest gem uncovered by McDonald aft helium discovered an unused cutscene successful Elden Ring’s crippled files that shed caller airy connected its plot, increasing the award-winning title’s already expansive lore adjacent further.

Image Credits: Lance McDonald, YouTube / FromSoftware

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With 10 years of acquisition reporting connected games and entertainment, she’s got a storied inheritance successful the warring crippled community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her connected Twitter astatine @TheeMissGlaze.