Demon's Souls

There's friction between the original and this lavish remake, but this is a scintillating launch title that shows off the PS5's strengths. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Demon’s Souls on PlayStation 5 is very much the Demon’s Souls you remember from PlayStation 3. It doesn’t miss a beat, nailing the same melancholy atmosphere and compelling gameplay that would eventually spawn fellow instant-classics like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. While there were bound to be a few aspects that could have been more faithful to the original, PlayStation 5’s Demon’s Souls remake stands out as an incredibly fun way to revisit the cursed land of Boletaria. It’s creepy. It’s gloomy. You’ll get invaded by laggy assholes near the end of a long level and have to do the whole thing over again. It feels like coming home.

PlayStation 5 owners are getting something unprecedented: one of the best video games of all time transformed into one of the best-looking games ever.

They’ve preserved the warts with the same loving care that they’ve lavished on the core gameplay, which remains solidly satisfying even as it’s used in service of frequent gotchas or nasty tricks. Yes, the levels are too long. Yes, the game’s consumable healing items lack the elegance of Dark Souls’ self-replenishing estus. Yes, the trick with the boss that just keeps respawning until you go kill the innocuous zombie standing on her balcony a billion miles away is unimaginable horseshit. But also, yes: That sense of running through the labyrinths of a demented, cackling dungeon master, daring you to stay alive ahead of rolling boulders and tricksy ambushes—while unseen friends leave you messages warning you away from the worst of the deathtraps—is still alive and well.