Without adding new enemies or maps, FromSoftware’s upcoming Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin will dish out greater challenges for veterans and offer a twist on the original story with the new non-playable character, director Yui Tanimura tells IGN.

“In terms of new content, there are no additional maps, no. But the story will be new and expanded and fresh, even for the players who have played through seven or eight times,” Tanimura says. “But there are some new ways through the maps.”

The updated version won’t feature new enemies—except for a new type of Dark Phantom they couldn’t divulge any information on—but enemy placement and how they interact with player is scrambled.

“The enemy placement and the types of enemies that you are going to face, in terms of different areas, is totally different ... And that will change how you will reach the end of the map,” Tanimura says. “So for the DLCs those were new maps, new areas to explore. For this game, we are basically making a new challenge out of the entire Dark Souls 2.”

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“Basically, players will have to approach the game as a new game,” Daniel Markoff, localization producer at Bandai Namco Games, says. “It will have its stages but you are not going to recognize the enemies' [locations]. ‘Oh, and around this corner is XYZ.’ They are not there anymore and they are probably be behind and will probably kill you.”

Markoff highlighted how the shift in enemy placements affect and change the expected item drops by enemies, an important aspect of the game. My hands-on time with the overhauled version wasn’t enough to get a solid indication of how much the enemy variations change over different areas. One thing was certain, there was a change in enemy placement from the base game which caused me to embarrassingly yelp out a few times when I was caught by surprise.

While there’s no extra content or new maps, there is a new experience in the existing maps with the reshuffling of the enemies and the NPC. The new NPC is the subject to expand and broaden the depth of the Dark Souls 2 story but, unfortunately, FromSoftware wasn’t quite ready to give up meaty details on the character and his role.

“So there is a lot of stuff that we are not revealing quite yet," Tanimura explains. "Basically the idea for him is he will give the player a new path to proceed on in the game, as well as broaden the story -- also to give the player an opportunity to reflect on the story of the game.”“In terms of how the NPC specially interacts with the player, if we went into that actually that would spoil the experience for players, so that is not something that we want to go into right now,” he says in response when asked when players meet him and what effect does that have on the current progress flow in the game.

“But the players should also know that this NPC’s interaction with the player will change the experience for the story in general, so it’s a fresh experience partially thanks to this NPC,” he adds.

“How can I say yes and no at the same time?” he says, when asked if he’ll change the Dark Souls 2 story. “This NPC will lead the player on a new path, that’s as much as I can say.”

As for his identity, players will have come across him in the original game. “I think people will look at the videos and screenshots and make their own judgments but that’s up to them," Tanimura explains. "He’s an already established character in the lore, he’s there you don't notice him in the original game. It’s an interesting unfolding I think. This goes for players who haven't played the game as well players who pick up Scholar of the First Sin as their first Darks Souls experience, they are going to be much more involved in the lore because of that.”

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When Scholar of the First Sin hits PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and DX11 PCs in April of 2015, it'll consist of Dark Souls 2, the three DLC chapters, weapon balance changes, expanded item text, increase in max online players and a new NPC to “bridge the depth of the story.” Those who currently own Dark Souls 2 on last-gen systems will receive all of the improvements that the developer “can possibly give,” and the previously mentioned additions, barring the DLC, as an 1.10 update.

The higher specs of new-gen consoles and DirectX 11 PCs introduces better graphics, framerate and texture resolution, along with improvements to sound, lighting, shadows, cloth and other effects into the remastered version.

“If you look at the game, its very obviously made for PS4 and Xbox One. I think that players will be satisfied with it and also those on DirectX 11,” Markoff says. Existing PC users of the game will have to pay for these upgrades. As the final build is still in development, our brief hands-on with Scholar of the First Sin was on PS3 and not on new-consoles, so we didn’t get to check out differences in graphics or frame rate ourselves.

With the higher memory afforded by the new hardware, FromSoftware were able to include elements they wanted originally wanted to do. For instance, models of some existing bosses are replaced with larger-scaled models with a higher polygon density count and the number of creatures in swarms are increased.

“It’s really all about realizing the vision for Dark Souls 2, using this higher level graphics,” Markoff says. ”Also, in terms of the placement to give players a totally new experience, so that they know that is a totally new game, to be able have a whole new set of challenges and to curse and throw the controller at the screen.”

Many improvements implemented were based on player feedback, including an “extremely long” list of balance changes and modifications for different weapons and equipment.

“ "They wanted match up with their friends, and we've given them tools to do that."

This also includes “tremendous adjustments” to online matching making parameters and balance, a list that “would make your eyes bulge.” The pair couldn’t delve into the details of the multiplayer modifications but it is known that increase the number of max players allowed in multiplayer.

“Online matching, you know, players wanted to match up, regardless of how many playthroughs that they have, they wanted match up with their friends,” Markoff says. ”And we've given them tools to do that.”

“You can guess whatever number you like,” Tanimura said in response if he could give an indication of the number of max players. “We’ll be giving out more details [soon]. More than two, less than a billion.”

Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter.