Ever since the release of the Demon’s Souls remake in November, we’ve been slashing our way through some of the toughest monsters gaming has to offer and exploring every nook and cranny of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s dark kingdom of Boletaria. Incredibly, though, we failed to pick up on this little Easter egg until today: You can actually press L3 to have a nice conversation with the game’s bosses and enemies. And you know what, gamers? It turns out that they’re all pretty nice.
That’s right! Like us, you may have found yourself bashing your head against the wall struggling to defeat lumbering Penetrators or relentless waves of Silver Skeletons. But if you just choose to holster your Battle Axe, you can instead casually chat with these enemies about what they’re up to this weekend or where to grab a good burrito in the Valley of Defilement. Turns out, if you just act like a nice guy—instead of a bloodthirsty maniac—every “enemy” in the game will simply let you pass without so much as lifting a finger.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is really the name of the game in Demon’s Souls.
Put simply, most gamers have been completely misreading the aggressive body language and menacing appearance of Demon’s Souls enemies. While so many of us instinctively drew our weapons as a Red Eye Knight charged our way, the truth is they just want to talk to you about your favorite entry in the Mission Impossible franchise. Admittedly, it’s banal and can get pretty boring after the Knight keeps telling you that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in MI:III is underappreciated. But by simply trying to have a conversation instead of killing these supposed adversaries, you’ll find out you have a lot more in common with them than you initially thought.
One neat feature is that there’s actually a whole dialogue wheel system, if you hold down L3 for five seconds or so. By utilizing the “joke” and “charm” options in succession we actually found out we share a love of amateur photography with the Storm King and went out on a nice date with him in the Shrine of Storms. It didn’t go anywhere, romantically, but it really makes us wonder what we’ve missed out on by being so dismissive in the past.
So there you have it, gamers! It turns out many of Demon’s Souls creatures share the same values we have, and yet we’ve been murdering them indiscriminately for over a decade. Frankly, we feel terrible about killing so many of them. But for anyone who loves Soulsborne games, we can’t think of a better reason to jump back in and replay this classic from the very beginning!
