DARK SOULS: REMASTERED

The pitch

Dark Souls: Remastered brings FromSoftware's 2011 classic — the game that popularised the "souls-like" genre of deliberate, punishing, richly interconnected action RPGs — to modern hardware with higher resolution and a stable 60fps target, replacing the earlier "Prepare to Die Edition" PC port entirely.

The game itself is not the argument

Reading this corpus, the underlying quality of Dark Souls is essentially uncontested. Even the most scathing negative reviews about the remaster open with genuine affection: "I'm saying this as someone who owns all iterations of Dark Souls on Steam and has 100% completion in all of them," reads one detailed 1,880-vote review, immediately before it criticises the remaster itself. Positive reviews describe it in similarly personal terms — one, posted shortly after the death of Berserk creator Kentaro Miura (a major influence on the game's aesthetic), simply reads "Rest in peace Kentaro Miura. One of the pioneers for the entire concept of dark souls."

What actually drew the anger: a remaster that didn't fix what it should have

The negative-review corpus is dominated by launch-week complaints, and they're specific rather than vague. "7 years and you still can't even fix the Gwyndolin bonfire bug. What exactly did you 'remaster' in this remaster?" reads a 1,911-vote review. Another: "This is not a 'REMASTER', it's a rerelease. Still has glitched textures." A 2022 review reports "a game breaking bug where Bed of Chaos was still in the game" — referencing a notoriously buggy boss fight from the original 2011 release, four years after this remaster shipped. "Remaster" appears 140 times across the 100 most-helpful negative reviews, almost always in a skeptical or sarcastic register.

A serious, if short-lived, hacking crisis at launch

Beyond bugs, several detailed 2018 reviews describe a genuine online safety problem: PC hackers invading and corrupting other players' saves in the game's first weeks. "Let's begin by addressing the cheating issue... Cheaters are already infesting the game," reads one heavily-revised review; another, with over a thousand votes, warns "Hackers galore, do not buy this [game]" after being invaded and having their game compromised. This isn't something this review can verify is still occurring in 2026, but it was serious enough at launch to be a dominant theme in the most-upvoted reviews from that period.

The delisted original, and the years-long price complaint

A distinct, more unusual complaint concerns access rather than quality: the previous "Prepare to Die Edition," a cheaper legacy PC version, was removed from Steam entirely when Remastered launched. "Removing the original from steam and charging THIS price without ever going on sale for a decent price has created a massive roadblock to new players enjoying this masterpiece," reads a 514-vote review from December 2023. Another, from February 2023: "Bandai just keeps jacking up the price of this game worldwide, tremendously shameful. It's a 12 year old game already, the remaster does absolutely NOTHING to justify such a ridiculous price." This is a complaint that recurs across multiple years rather than fading after launch, suggesting it reflects an ongoing pricing pattern rather than a one-time gripe.

Where sentiment sits now

Recent English review sentiment — the 100 most recent reviews, spanning early to mid-August 2026 — runs 88% positive, close to the 92.3% lifetime figure. Whatever frustration the remaster's handling generated, it hasn't meaningfully dented how this game is received; the underlying design carries it. Achievement data backs up a healthy, engaged playerbase: the median across 41 achievements is 29.9%, a gradual curve consistent with a hard game that a real share of buyers nonetheless see through.

Value

At NZ$67.99 with no sale history most reviewers describe as adequate, value is the honest weak point here — not because the game lacks content, but because of the specific pricing pattern multiple reviewers document across several years. If you can catch a genuine discount, this becomes a far easier recommendation.

Verdict

Dark Souls: Remastered sells access to one of action RPG's most influential and best-regarded games, wrapped in a remaster its own launch-week audience — including longtime, invested fans — criticised specifically for leaving known issues unfixed while removing the cheaper alternative version. The underlying game hasn't lost a step, and recent sentiment confirms it. Buy this for Lordran. Just try not to pay full price to get there.