Lance McDonald just dropped the kind of archival heat that makes every Souls historian lose their minds — 2007 prototype footage proving Demon’s Souls almost shipped with a selectable first-person mode. The Japan Studio presentation slides lay it out plain: left stick for strafe and backstep, automatic third-person follow cam, and a full first-person toggle that would’ve turned the entire series on its head before it even existed. Snake-headed enemies that later haunted Sen’s Fortress in Dark Souls, the ghost mechanic already sketched out, and even a South Park “Make Love, Not Warcraft” slide roasting the MMO stereotype they were trying to dodge. This isn’t fan fiction. It’s a real internal deck from when the game was still hunting that “worldwide blockbuster” crown.