Demon's Souls headed to PlayStation Network next week

Demon's Souls, the critically-acclaimed precursor to Dark Souls, will be made available through the US PlayStation Network next week.

The From Software RPG - which Atlus US has said is its biggest-selling title ever despite the success of the Persona series - will be available on January 8 for $20, according to the PS Blog.

The game's persistant popularity has ensured its servers remain open, so even more than three years on from its initially niche western release, you can experience its groundbreaking aynchronous, versus and co-operative multiplayer.

On that note, to celebrate its PSN launch, Demon's Souls will host a Pure White World Tendency event. That means beginners will meet weaker enemies, find more healing items, and have access to some special areas and characters which are otherwise inaccessible - but it also means less XP per kill and less rare drops. World Tendency is a neat but complicated feature; read about it on a wiki here.

No word on an European release; we'll have to wait on Namco Bandai's pleasure, I suspect.

The multi-platform Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, which is itself a follow-up to the KIng's Field series.