Dark Souls III Magic Will be Limited by Mana Bar, Mechanical Tidbits

Dark Souls III is the subject of the latest cover story from Game Informer, so today the magazine has published two articles offering new information on the game on its own website, as customary with their cover stories. The first covers the magic system in the game, while the second examines a variety of small mechanical trappings in the game and investigates how they’ve been tuned when compared to the original game and its more controversial sequel.

Director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who provides some of the commentary in the articles, decided to revert back to Demon’s Souls’ mana bar system over the quasi-Vancian spellcasting of the two Dark Souls titles. An interesting choice for sure:

“We will make sure that they are not just the same type of spells with different attributes (i.e. Spear type, lightning type) but actually have specific characteristics that can enhance the players’ play styles and strategies,” Miyazaki says. “Players will be able to have more criteria to accurately choose the different types of spells to best fit their tactics and strategies. This is similar to the thinking behind the characterization of each weapon and their specific battle arts.”

Similar to battle arts, Miyazaki hinted that magic would have its own system that would provide players new options with core spells.

Another change coming to the magic system affects limitations on usage. In the previous two Dark Souls games, magic was limited by the number of available charges, which refresh when you sit at a bonfire. Magic in Dark Souls III will be ruled by a more traditional MP bar, similar to Demon’s Souls. “By changing the magic management system to an MP scheme, options and freedom of utilization should increase. This way we can better clarify the differences in managing items and magic,” Miyazaki says.

From Miyazaki’s comments, it’s clear that the game is following the original’s design for the most part, but is also taking a few cues from Dark Souls II when its mechanics were well-received. For example, fast travel and respec will return, while New Game+ mode will be closer to Dark Souls II, with shuffled enemy and item positions in addition to harder enemies. 

The digital subscription version of the magazine should be out today, so we should probably expect more information from the cover story to surface on the internet.