From Software's spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed medieval themed Demon's Souls was first announced at last year's Tokyo Game Show as " Project Dark ." Today, we at long last have a followup courtesy of Japan's Weekly Famitsu.

The official name for the game is " Dark Souls Namco Bandai . The release time frame was announced at TGS as 2011.Dark Souls is just a "spiritual" sequel rather than an actual sequel. It has a completely different story and world, but retains many of the themes of its predecessor.The basic RPG gameplay involving character creation, obtaining weapons and leveling up appear to be in place. But you'll now be adventuring in a fully seamless world, where you can venture to areas you see far in the distance. This differs from the original which had five worlds connected by a shrine hub.Joining the vast world, we can look forward to a great number of weapon, magic and item types. All this promise to contribute to player freedom. And good thing, too, because it seems that From has actually upped the difficulty!Online play will include both cooperative and competitive elements. The indirect online play of Demon's Souls will also return. You'll be able to see images of other players and leave messages for others. Some elements will not carry over, as Dark Souls will not have its own servers.We'll hopefully be getting a more formal announcement of all these details from Namco Bandai's US offices shortly, so stay tuned for more!