Taken from GAF: There's a preview on the game in this week's Famitsu. The official title is now Dark Souls. Some info from the preview:

- This is the official title of what was previously Project Dark

- This time they want to increase the amount of field exploration in the game.
- All fields are seamless, so whatever you can see, you can reach and explore. If you see a fortress or castle walls in the distance, you can eventually get there.
- There will be no map display in the game, just a position display marker.

- They aim to make the game just as challenging than Demon's Souls, but also just as rewarding when you succeed. The sense of achievement is important.

- The gameplay will be similar to Demon's Souls in concept, where it's about trial and error and learning from your mistakes to play better.

- The game does not share the same world and story as Demon's Souls.
- The game will not use the same format as Demon's Souls in terms of having 5 worlds connected via a hub.

- Instead all maps in the game will be linked seamlessly in a connected world. The pace of the game will feel more about exploration and discovering locations, which you can then go inside into a dungeon or whatever and explore the interior further.
- There will be more complex level designs in the game using more vertical design in areas and such.

- The world setting is based on medieval dark fantasy, and will contain themes like "high fantasy of kings and knights", "death and the depths of the earth", and "the flames of chaos".

- The character creation process will not be class based.
- The play style of the player character will have much more freedom this time.
- There will be many more spells and items, and the animation and uniqueness of weapons will also be increased.

- The online elements are very similar to Demon's Souls. There is cooperative and PvP.
- You can still leave messages, and see players who died at various places.
- There will be no Soul Tendency this time because they don't want to have to use dedicated servers to handle that shit again.
- Instead this time there will be more features allowing players to engage in "mutual role playing" which they say are still under wraps. They'll reveal more when it's time.

This leads to me wondering why the heck isn't this a Demon's Souls 2, when it's basically a Demon's Souls 2...
Is it because Sony owns some of it, and they wanted to release on 360 as well?
 
If so, why doesn't Bioware release Mass Effect 1 as Space And Aliens And Lasers: The RPG on the PS3? :(

" This leads to me wondering why the heck isn't this a Demon's Souls 2, when it's basically a Demon's Souls 2... Is it because Sony owns some of it, and they wanted to release on 360 as well?  If so, why doesn't Bioware release Mass Effect 1 as Space And Aliens And Lasers: The RPG on the PS3? :( "

Sounds great! Personally, I'm glad they got rid of the world tendency stuff since that was at first downright confusing to figure out, and then would lead to becoming mostly a hassle to then influence the tendencies, once I knew how it all worked. Dying over and over in body form to get yourself in the black wasn't a worth while experience. 
 
The class system is worth getting rid of as well, if they plan to have the character progression in the same vein as Demon's Souls. Besides the first few soul levels, it was pretty much pointless in the long run as to what class you picked. Hopefully this may mean they'll instead just give the player a set number of points to then invest in their character from the get go.

I'm also glad to hear them not dumbing it down for all the folks who thought it was God of War when they tried it.

Man I still gotta finish DS. Got stuck on the manticore and then it got lost in the shuffle...

This is beginning to sound like one of those central-eastern european PC RPGs... Atlus is making something similar with the Cursed Crusade -- that one's coming out on the PC.

Sounds awesome, I just hope the seamless world works great, as if it's an annoying task to get from location to location that could hurt the experience a bit.  One thing I loved about Demon's Souls was any level of the game was no longer than 30 seconds away usually.  Oh, and I loved the everliving hell out of that game by the way.

Cool, thanx for the details OP. But what I would really like to see is a goddamn pause button, that's what ruined the first one for me.

Mmmmm.... More Demon Soulllllssss.... Thanks OP! Can't wait!

I really like the idea of the seamless world. Cannot wait to get me some more Demon Souls!

" I really like the idea of the seamless world. Cannot wait to get me some more Demon Souls! "

Sounds really great. I don't mind the difficulty, even though I still haven't completely finished Demon's Souls. 
 
But since this isn't a direct sequel, I hope you now won't be losing XP when you die since you are possibly no longer collecting souls.

" Sounds really great. I don't mind the difficulty, even though I still haven't completely finished Demon's Souls.  But since this isn't a direct sequel, I hope you now won't be losing XP when you die since you are possibly no longer collecting souls. "

FUCK YES!!!

SOUNDS GREAT

My first world of warcraft guild was called dark souls >_>

Aside from what's already been mentioned, points that stuck out to me were:

- There will be more complex level designs in the game using more vertical design in areas and such.
 
I already thought the level design in Demon's Souls was very intricate and interesting, but it seems like they're now willing to go even beyond that and I'm really curious as to what they've got planned.
 
- There will be many more spells and items, and the animation and uniqueness of weapons will also be increased.
 
Again, you could tell a considerate amount of time in the development of Demon's Souls had already been spent on weapon animation and now even still increasing the animation and uniqueness sounds crazy, and also awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing the new weapons they come up with. Maybe a flail of some sort?

Fuuuuck yes, i am ready.

This is great news.

Can't wait. Demon's Souls is easily one of the greatest reasons to own a PS3 - happy to see that everyone will get a slice of their next game.

UGH! I wonder how this will work on XBL since player with silver accounts will be getting the shaft. I can see the MSG's now. 
 
*Unnamed XBL player trying to leave a hint msg* 
 
"We apologize but  this feature is unavailable due to your current XBL subscription. Please upgrade your account if you want to enjoy the full features this game offers" 
 
*Unnamed XBL player trying to use his/hers Blue or Red stone* 
 
"We apologize but  this feature is unavailable due to your current XBL subscription. Please upgrade your account if you want to enjoy the full features this game offers"      
 
I am not trying to troll but if this game has an online mode on the same line as Demon's Souls then I feel that not all players on XBL will be on even ground or will get to experiance a feature that can make this game a huge successes. 

This. Is. All. So. Awesome.

Well, Demon's Souls was still playable offline, you just missed out on a lot of the cool stuff. I guess that silver XBL subscribers would just have to play without all the messages, multiplayer etc. Bit of a bummer, really.

" Well, Demon's Souls was still playable offline, "

The first game is one of my favorites, can't wait to see how this one turns out.