Demon’s Souls’ weird, beloved cat lives on in the PS5 remake

The Demon’s Souls remake for PlayStation 5 makes many small tweaks to FromSoftware’s original game. Certain names have been changed (e.g. Sticky White Stuff has been renamed to Sticky White Slime, Red Hot Demon’s Soul renamed to Searing Demon’s Soul), and elements of the user interface have been updated to homogenize the game’s presentation.

Perhaps the biggest tiny change in Demon’s Souls is a cosmetic alteration to the game’s infamous Cat’s Ring, which reduces the player’s falling damage and which is represented in-game by a small photo of a real-world cat. Here’s how that looked in the original Demon’s Souls.

Image: FromSoftware

As you can see in the upper left portion of the screen, there’s a cat there. Just a regular ol’ house cat. Everyone loved it. (For what it’s worth, the effect status icon for the game’s Clever Rat’s Ring and Dull Rat’s Ring is also a goofy looking rat.)

But in the Demon’s Souls remake, developer Bluepoint Games opted for something a little more consistent. The reduced falling damage icon that displays when the Cat’s Ring is equipped is just a silhouette of a cat on a grey square. It’s pretty ho-hum, but at least it’s consistent with the rest of the status effect icons in the remake.

Reaction to the change has been mixed, naturally.

However, Bluepoint has not erased the Cat’s Ring cat from the game entirely!

[Warning: Spoilers for the credits of Demon’s Souls follow.]

That charming little kitty makes an appearance during the game’s credits, on what appears to be a “missing cat” sign pinned to a tree trunk in the game’s starting area. (You can see it on the far left of the following screenshot.)

Image: Bluepoint Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

While we’ll miss seeing that extremely normal cat in the corner of our screens while dropping dangerously into the depths of Stonefang Tunnel, it’s nice to know he or she still has a place in the year 2020.