"Dark Souls 3 follows closely from Dark Souls 2," says Miyazaki about game's design

We may not have gameplay for Dark Souls 3, but we sure as hell have enough information to start speculating.

Hidetaka Miyazaki, legendary director of Souls games returns to co-direct Dark Souls 3. He spoke to Famitsu in an interview and talked a little bit about the third game's design.

In the interview, translated by Gematsu, he says that in terms of design, it follows closely from Dark Souls 2, and that they kept "the handy things," presumably referring to the second game's improved menus and the like.

As for the combat, it appears to be faster than previous games, but not quite Bloodborne-level. "We've expanded the character builder and tactical options without sacrificing the feel of the series. We added new action elements that contribute to the sense of role-playing," he said.

"For instance, we adopted the concept of rapid fire for the short bow, and the animation between rolling and walking has been smoothed out. I don’t think we’re going to employ the idea of agility, otherwise the action would be stressful until you raise your stats."

He added that the game will have "slightly less maps" than Dark Souls 2, but that each individual map has a much larger scale.

Dark Souls 3 was revealed during Microsoft's E3 conference with a snazzy trailer and an "early 2016" release window. We've yet to see any gameplay footage.

Miyazaki clarified earlier comments about the game being the final one in series, saying that it's not the case.

Dark Souls 3 is in development for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.