"Project Beast" Footage Surfaces (Video)

Update 05/31: here's that footage in much higher quality: Project Beast

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Complex doesn't usually make a habit of reporting on leaked footage and rumors, but this is too, too juicy not to mention. Thursday night footage of From Software's alleged new game codenamed Project Beast hit Youtube, further substantiating leaked online screens from a few weeks ago. The scant footage seems to confirm what we already probably know: the Dark Souls creators are cooking up a new next-gen Souls title. 

Though the leaked clip is only about 17 seconds long – and clearly in no way officially sanctioned (so, don't mind the use of Demon's Souls music during it), you would have to be one hell of a superfact to orchestrate this kind of asset tomfoolery over something that doesn't exist. In the footage above a bedraggled warrior fights off is shown holding both melee and projectile weapon – by the looks of the character's gun, it looks a bit modeled after a matchlock or arquebus, theoretically keeping the Souls universe (universes?) medieval setting intact. It also, as you no doubt can tell, looks gorgeous, whatever it is.

At the same time, Souls developer From Software was recently bought by Kadokawa Games while Demon's and Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki was promoted to the company's president, just as it was announced that the acquisition by Kadokawa would allow From to make more games.

At the same time, we know that Miyazaki took an advisory role on Dark Souls II, instead heading up a new unannounced project. Not to mention the rumors way back in November that Sony would be debuting a new PS4-exclusive Demon's Souls at the console's launch, a date that could have been easily pushed back. If any of this is true, what that means for Namco's rights to Dark Souls is anyone's guess.

So what is Project Beast? Is it real? Is it the sequel to Demon's Souls? Is it another Souls successor, with a different name entirely?

If so: Hoary Souls. That is all.

[Via Youtube]