Forever in the nexus: An Accessibility Review of Demons Souls Remake for PS5

The Demons Souls remake is absolutely a showcase for the power of the Playstation 5. Sadly, this is another game to fall into the unplayable category if you are blind. Yet still, I find I do have a few things to say about it, so I’m going to say those things. Let’s get to it.

Firstly, I have to mention the Dual Sense haptic support here. I am already noticing that there are games that deal with the haptics better or worse than others, which is fine as many folks are likely still trying to figure out how to take advantage of this tech. Demons Souls, though, is one of the really good ones. While they opted not to use haptics for footsteps, they use it for everything else. I swung my axe at something, and felt the impact as it clanged off of it. I swung at something else that had water around it, and felt both the clang as I hit it, and the individual water droplets as they splashed up onto, presumably, my axe. I broke something made of wood, and felt each individual piece hitting the floor. Yeah, it’s impressive. Interestingly they don’t seem to have utilized the adaptive triggers for weapon usage, though I only tried 1 weapon. Still, it was a giant axe, so one would think that if it was going to be utilized, it would be there. I believe it is used for other things, as I’m almost certain Bluepoint mentioned the adaptive triggers, but I never got the chance to encounter those things.

Second, I feel it’s important to call out the 3D audio usage in a game when it’s done well, and it is done well here. 3D audio on its own does not mean instantaneous accessibility in most cases, but I am still of the belief that it can be, and in some cases absolutely is, a major, major help. Using 3D audio in Demons Souls, I was able to track down enemies in the environment and slay them savagely, as one does in that game. The enemies make plenty of noise, even when they haven’t seen you yet, so finding a fight when one is near isn’t difficult. I even had the tremendous experience of an enemy seeing me and running at me, and while I took an unfortunate hit, man oh man it sounded great. It is difficult to describe what really good 3D audio is like, but I felt like I knew the positions of everything I was hearing, which is exactly what you want. Also, Bluepoint said in their State of Play video that they added literally thousands of sound effects, and given how rich the audio is, even the combat audio, I absolutely believe them. It’s wonderful stuff.

Sadly that’s all I really have to say about the game. What little I managed to play of Demons Souls only really happened because my stream chat assisted with navigating the early part of the game. Still, I had a good time, and I feel I did experience enough of the game to confidently say, once again, that Demons Souls Remake is indeed a testament to the power of the pS5. Check out that loading screen between character creation and the opening cutscene, for instance. Oh wait, there isn’t one. Like, not at all. Seriously, being as unable to play it as I am, I can still tell that Demons Souls Remake is a fantastic game. I hope you sighted readers out there get your hands on it, and I hope you experience some of the same thoughts and feelings I did and then some. Thanks as always for reading. Stay awesome!

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