GMSHP Chapter 138: Feedback on Random Mode

Chapter 138: Feedback on Random Mode

The brand-new Random Mode quickly became a hot topic in many Dark Souls-related forums and communities.

“This mode is super unfriendly to unlucky people! I have this friend, and all he ever gets is fading souls or dung. And the weapons? All whips!”

“Wait, there are actually whip weapons in this game!?”

“Not to be suspicious, but… this ‘friend’ of yours isn’t actually you, is it?”

“To be honest, my first boss was the Dancer of the Boreal Valley. I was done for right there!”

“That’s nothing! On the way through the Cemetery of Ash, I ran into Black Knights, Corvians, and Serpent Men—every single one!”

This new Random Mode gave a lot of players—who had lost interest in Dark Souls—an urge to pick it up again.

Although in Random Mode, luck sometimes matters more than skill when it comes to balance.

For example, players blessed with incredible luck can pick up all kinds of powerful top-tier weapons and Lords of Cinder souls right from the start, turning the game into an easy hack-and-slash experience.

But those cursed with terrible luck might go through endless trouble to find an item, only to discover it’s dung, turning the game into a different kind of “hack-and-slash”—one aimed at their sanity—at hell difficulty.

This mode also awakened a new trait in many players, right after satisfying their masochistic tendencies—obsessive-compulsive disorder!

In the original version, many players wouldn’t even bother looking at these collectible items.

That’s because most of the time they might just be souls, or weapons they think are useless, things that barely help with the gameplay experience—basically just something to satisfy collectors.

But in random mode, it’s a whole different story. The item you skip could turn out to be the Soul of the Nameless King, or maybe a Black Knight Shield.

So naturally, for players, not a single item can be missed.

What if the next one turns out to be something insanely good!?

And that’s also the biggest charm of random mode.

Players never know if the next thing they open will be a piece of junk or a treasure.

That thrill of “pulling the lever” is pretty addictive.

Combine that with players who, after finishing their first run, watched lore and story analysis videos by Dark Souls experts online, and then decided to jump back in for another journey to link the fire.

After all, in the original Dark Souls, new game plus was mostly just a repeat of the first playthrough. Sure, enemies and bosses would get stronger, and some items would only appear in later runs,

but for many casual players, that still wasn’t enough to make them want to replay.

Random mode, though, is different.

It’s way more fun, and every new run feels like a completely fresh adventure.

Players can never guess what kind of item they’ll pick up next, or what kind of boss or enemy they’ll run into.

After random mode went live, Dark Souls not only regained its popularity, but even saw a small bump in sales.

Streams and videos of random mode were really entertaining to watch, and that pulled in a lot of attention.

Of course, whether those curious newcomers could actually survive and stay in the world of Dark Souls once they began their journey to link the fire… well, that depended on their endurance.

For most players, the base Dark Souls already had enough content to keep them busy for a long time, and now with random mode, it could eat up even more of their free time.

But aside from that, there was another big question on players’ minds.

When was Lucas going to start working on the sequel to Dark Souls?

………………

Inside Nebula Games’ office.

After finishing the development of Dark Souls and launching the new mode, the whole team was pretty relaxed.

Apart from the customer service and community management team for the Nebula Games platform, and the workshop moderation team,

the only busy groups in the Game Division were the teams running Legends of the Three Kingdoms, Fall Guys, and Overcooked.

Unlike Dark Souls, which is a single-player game, these three are focused on multiplayer,

so they all need ongoing support.

Aside from Legends of the Three Kingdoms, which still has very loyal players, the other two games aren’t as popular as they once were, but still have plenty of active users.

Lucas wasn’t going to just ignore them, but his personal attention wasn’t really on those projects anymore.

Stretching in his chair, Lucas looked over the information his assistant Lisa had gathered for him.

Since most of his focus was on game development, sometimes he didn’t catch important industry news right away.

That’s where Lisa came in—she collected all the key updates for him.

He glanced over the news, but there wasn’t anything big lately.

In the gaming industry, most of the attention was on the two new VR titles from SkyNova and NetDragon.

What did catch Lucas’s eye, though, was the information Lisa had gathered earlier about companies focusing on AI technology.

When it came to top-tier AI companies, there was no question — they handled things like facial and iris recognition, medical, security, and military tech. The scale was huge, and it obviously wasn’t the kind of thing Lucas cared about.

Also, large AI companies usually didn’t grow purely on their own; they relied heavily on money tactics — buying up other companies — and building massive data barriers around themselves.

As for regular AI companies, their size was nowhere near that level.

Going through the information Lisa had collected, Lucas noticed a few AI tech companies that met the requirements for using certain item cards.

He pulled those files out separately and placed them in a nearby folder, then stretched and walked out of his office.

It was lunchtime, and in the recreation area, Anna, Rachel, Hector, and a few others were either lying back in chairs with headphones on, pretending to nap, or playing games together.

Including the cleaning lady, Nebula Games now had 85 employees.

Not quite big enough to be called a mid-sized studio, but also too big to be called a small one.

Lucas walked over, and some employees greeted him along the way.

On the only sofa, Anna and Rachel were holding controllers, playing the new mode in Dark Souls on the big screen.

“Rachel, your luck is terrible! An Irithyll Straight Sword? What junk is that! Watch me pull a Dragonslayer Great Axe in a bit!” Anna mocked as she saw what Rachel got.

“This is your so-called luck, Anna? A firebomb?” Rachel shot back.

“You two really have bad luck,” Lucas said as he cracked open a can of Coke from the fridge.

“Lucas, why don’t you try?” Rachel said, offering him the controller.

“I’ll pass. You guys play.” Lucas waved his hand. He didn’t have much faith in his own luck either — when it came to this game’s lottery system, he always won by sheer volume. So far, he had only gotten two special items, and he had no idea how many tries it had taken.

Rachel kept playing, while Anna suddenly asked, “Oh right, Lucas, when are we going to start developing the sequel to Dark Souls? I’ve seen tons of players asking about it on the forums and our official blog!”

Hector, who had just walked over, immediately jumped in, “Yeah, Lucas, when are we making the sequel? Judging from the story and worldbuilding so far, the next game should cover events from before, right? So it would make more sense as a prequel!”

Hearing that, other employees nearby perked up, listening closely and watching Lucas with expectant eyes.

They knew more than the average player about whether there would be a sequel.

After all, during development, they had deliberately left open story threads clearly meant for a follow-up game.

The only thing they felt the same as the players about was wanting to know the complete Dark Souls world and story.

Looking at their eager faces, Lucas nodded. “You’re right, it would be a prequel. But for now, there are no plans. Dark Souls has only been out for less than two months — talking about a sequel now is too soon.”

“At the very least, we should let the players catch their breath first. Of course, if you don’t mind, I can create a folder called ‘Dark Souls: Prequel’ right now. And if nothing unexpected happens, the company will have a big move coming soon.”

“A big move?!” Everyone grew even more curious.

“You’ll find out when the time comes,” Lucas said with a smile, then stood up and went back to his office.

(End of The Chapter)