somebody needs to tell these journos that "difficulty modifiers" aren't as easy as some MMO butt slider to make and that shit takes time, money and effort to program, time, money and effort they don't have to implement something that the target playerbase doesn't care about

Oh… Huh, well that's predictably, hilariously disappointing.

Well, can't wait for more anyhow.

And again, journos forgetting that phantoms were the easy mode in Dark Souls. Ornstein and Smough in the first game for example, always touted as one of the hardest encounters in the series. But it's made infinitely more manageable with a phantom be it a provided NPC or player.

And "Taking after Dark Souls," doesn't that mean it won't have such modifiers? The series never had or needed a traditional difficulty setting, yet it's became a massive and popular franchise, gaining fans and inspiring many other video games in its wake. It shows it doesn't need them. Fucking hacks.