Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin has just been announced for the west by Namco Bandai, and From Software, alongside its parent company Kadokawa Games, is already sending more from Japan via press release, with another batch of screenshots, which you can see above and below.
We also get to see the Japanese first print limited edition, which will include a guide, a map and a two-disk original soundtrack. At the moment there is no information on a possible release of the same edition in the west.
We then learn that existing PS3, PC and Xbox 360 owners will receive the new content included in the new edition (but not the DLC) for free with a large-scale patch on February 5th. The patch will include the following.
- Additional NPCs added for an enhanced story experience.
- Parameter adjustments for improved game balance.
- Augmented item descriptions.
- Improved online matchmaking functionality.
The game itself will launch in Japan in two different dates. On February 5th for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC (DirectX 9 version), and on April 9th for PS4, Xbox One and DirectX 11 version on April 9th.
The press release also includes a few more tidbits of information: save data cannot be transferred between old generation versions and new generation versions, and the two groups are played on separate servers, so there won't be any cross-play between PS3 and PS4. In addition to that (and rather strangely), it won't be possible to upgrade the DirectX 9 PC version to the DirectX 11 version.
