Yen Press has announced that New York Times bestselling Star Wars author Michael A Stackpole is working on an original Dark Souls novel.

The Dark Souls trilogy is one of the most influential franchises in modern gaming history. FromSoftware’s trio of action RPGs have inspired a whole host of epigones, all of which fall under the now ubiquitous umbrella term “Souls-like”. Yet, despite its popularity and influence, the game series itself has not led to a significant amount of official spin-offs or cross-media promotion, except for one tabletop role-playing game. Therefore, it is quite surprising that an original Dark Souls novel was suddenly announced in 2022.

On Thursday afternoon, publisher Yen Press, best known for licensing manga from Japan for publication in the United States, announced a partnership with FromSoftware’s parent company Kadokawa Games.

Yen Press will publish Dark Souls: Masque of Vindication in both print and digital formats starting on 25 October.

Kadokawa will also publish the novel in Japanese, shipping the book as a worldwide release.

The identity of the author of Dark Souls: Masque of Vindication should be fascinating for fans of Star War comics and novels. The author is none other than Michael A. Stackpole, the New York Times bestselling author of the I, Jedi and the Rogue Squadron series of books. Stackpole has written not only eight Star Wars novels and a slew of Battletech novels but also original stories based on video games, including World of Warcraft and Gears of War. He has also written for several games, including Wasteland and Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun Returns.

Dark Souls: Masque of Vindication is an original story set in the Souls universe.

It is not a novelisation of Souls or one of its sequels. The story will revolve around a man named Ferranos, an undead sorcerer who has been brought back with no memory of his previous life and is supposedly embarking on an “epic adventure guided by fate”.

It may seem a little surprising that the first novel is about to be published more than ten years after the first game was released. But it’s never too late, especially for such a successful and popular franchise, but the fact is that not many people were expecting this here and now. Still, for fans of the Souls series hoping to revisit Lordran for an all-new adventure possibly, this may be the best (and perhaps last) opportunity. Dark Souls: Masque of Vindication will be released on 25 October.

Source: Twitter

NOVEL ANNOUNCEMENT: Dark Souls: Masque of Vindication

Naming himself Ferranos, the mysterious sorcerer embarks on an epic adventure guided by fate. Enter the world of @fromsoftware_pr's Dark Souls in this original novel by bestselling author @mikestackpole.

Coming October 2022! pic.twitter.com/O397pE1zlY

— Yen Press (@yenpress) June 16, 2022