Dark Souls may be the spiritual successor to developer From Software's surprise hit Demon's Souls, but it's going to feature some nice upgrades from that game according to a new interview.

4Gamer (via Andriasang) gathered some new details on Dark Souls by speaking with the game's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. As previously announced, Dark Souls will have an open, fully connected world rather than a hub splitting off into individual levels. This connected world is probably part of the reason that Dark Souls will be larger than Demon's Souls -- Miyazaki expects the new game to take around 60 hours to complete compared to its predecessor's 30 to 40.

Also adding to that length: tons of new opponents. Where Demon's Souls had about 30 different enemy types, Dark Souls will feature nearly 100 creatures sure to kill you over and over again.

The scant multiplayer details sound similar to Demon's Souls so far, with players able to leave each other messages for a "shared play experience," as well as some form of cooperative and competitive play.

One thing the game definitely will not have? British slang in its title. Miyazaki revealed that Dark Souls started by a slightly more original title -- Dark Ring -- but it was changed because that phrase is slang for ass in Britain. Oh boy. They also had toyed with the title Dark Race, which refers to a cursed people relevant to the game's plot, but this too was changed for fear of it sounding racist.

Whatever the name, I'm excited to finally be hearing more details on this game. Rest assured that I'll post anything else I find as soon as I see it.