Pricing for <em>Dark Souls II</em>‘s PC remaster is pretty confusing

By Kris Wouk Published March 28, 2015

dark souls 2 scholar of the first sin upgrade pricing — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Fans of the Dark Souls games are used to punishing difficulty and unforgiving mechanics, but they don’t spend any time solving puzzles in the game. For PC gamers interested in the upcoming Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin release, figuring out what exactly you’ll be paying for it is a bit of a puzzle.

Console gamers have nothing to worry about. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of the game cost $60 — that’s it. For the PC version, gamers could pay anywhere from $20 to $50 for the game, as Bandai Namco revealed in a post on Tumblr yesterday.

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There are two different versions of Scholar of the First Sin for the PC: a DirectX 9 version, and a DirectX 11 version. Which of these versions you buy factors into the pricing, as does whether you own a previous version of Dark Souls II.

If you already own Dark Souls II for the PC and can’t make use of Direct X 11, there’s no reason in purchasing the remaster, as the changes included in Scholar of the First Sin have already been added to the game in a recent patch. If you do own a DirectX 11-capable PC, then you might want to consider an upgrade, as the visual elements of the remaster aren’t coming to the existing PC version.

The upgrade price on Steam for Scholar of the First Sin will be $30, though if you already own all of the existing DLC that has been released for the game, it will only cost you $20 to upgrade. If you don’t own any version of the game at all, the DirectX 9 version of the game will cost you $40, while the DirectX 11 version will sell for $50.

You might also want to help your friends out with a PC upgrade if you’re buying the DirectX 11 version and they’re stuck with DirectX 9. Due to changes in the game, previous gen players can’t play with current gen players. And one more thing — you can’t transfer your save to the new version of the game either.

There is one advantage to playing the PC version of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin: it will be released six days earlier. The PC version launches April 1, while the PS4 and Xbox One versions will be released on April 7.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

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