About 10 years ago, we began our journey into a dark and inhospitable world.
A hostile realm where corruption and greed turned kings into monsters, and where hope
was a half-remembered dream.
Also, some of us played Dark Souls.
Yes, it was the Decade of Dark Souls and the Dark Souls of Decades.
It totally permeated the collective gamer unconscious.
It just couldn’t be ignored.
FROM Software created this new strain of super-hard action RPGs as a deliberate counterpoint to
modern design sensibilities.
It’s a series that, for better and for worse, changed the way games are played, made, and
talked about.
So before the ember of discourse fades, sit down by the bonfire light of your computer,
tablet device, or mobile phone, and for one last time, listen to a man talk at you about
Dark Souls for entirely too long.
WHAT IS A DARK SOULS
Did you know the first Souls game was not Dark Souls, but 2009’s Demon’s Souls?
Dark Souls people know this, and they love telling Non Dark Souls people.
Demon’s Souls established a template that FROM Software would follow (with some alterations)
for 3 Dark Souls games, as well as Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
We’ll refer to this collected work as “Souls games.”
A souls game will usually check the following boxes:
RPG Mechanics Minimalist storytelling
“Methodical Combat” which means: No animation canceling + long animations
Stamina management (except in sekiro, where your protagonist is all hopped up on demerol
and baja blast) Big Scary Bosses
Limited Healing Items A Swamp Full of Poison
Obtuse Multiplayer Open-Ended Exploration
Dying A Lot Death Penalties
Manual Checkpoints And Every single person you meet sounds like
they’ve had a handful of xannies
So that’s what a Souls Game is.
But why a souls game... is?
DARK SOULS AS AN ANTIDOTE TO THE TIMES
Souls games were a deliberate antidote to the prevailing game design sensibilities.
In an interview after the release of Demon’s Souls (smug souls guy voice “which was actually
the first souls game”), the series’ creator Hidetaka Miyazaki said their goal was to “stay
clear of current trends” and felt that their game was something the “games industry needed.”
Much like a teenaged me, wearing flame-patterned chuck taylors a decade after the collapse
of third wave ska, the Souls franchise refused to do anything that could be considered appropriate
for the era in which it lived.
It seems like for each critical piece of game design, the team would look at how things
were being done, and then not do that— either adapting some old school mechanic from days
of gaming past, or coming up with something totally new.
Starting with:
CONTROLS Right here (showing controller face buttons)
is where the developer of pretty much every third person action game puts the important
stuff.
You use your thumb to smash jump, attack, heavy attack.
These (show the triggers) are the buttons where developers would put miscellaneous stuff
like “lock on” “magic spells” or “block.”
The coward’s buttons.
But Souls Games turned them into Warrior’s Buttons.
The change is a practical consideration: It lets you attack without taking your thumb
off the right stick, which is critical for maneuvering and not falling off of things.
But it’s also an idiosyncrasy that would come to define the games.
The first time I tried souls I didn’t get what it was going for, and immediately tried
to remap them.
They also forged their own path with their treatment of…
TEACHING
In 2001: Halo: Combat evolved taught us that even the most grizzled space marines need
someone to tell them how to look up or down.
This generous, borderline condescending tutorialization became an unshakeable trend.
To this day, the videogame hero’s journey ALWAYS begins when they cross the threshold
to adventure by passing under a fallen tree, crouching for the first time in their heroic
lives.
Dark Souls, on the other hand teaches players to survive the same way my father taught me
how to mow the lawn— that is, by looking at me and saying “Patrick.
Go mow the lawn.”
Like dads everywhere, souls games were determined to foster a sense of independence, especially
when it comes to:
NAVIGATION
Most games of the era were giving players tools to get them exactly where they needed
to be.
Action games drew players from area to area, guiding them with clever lighting, AI companions,
or sometimes just fuckin UI waypoints plastered over the damn screen.
Open world games had detailed maps and GPS systems that told you not just where to go,
but how to get there— which was kind of a bummer.
I played way too much of Red Dead and GTA staring at the lower right corner of the screen
instead of the very pretty environment.
Souls games would replace GPS systems with another system, where if you go the wrong
way, you’ll get killed by 100 skeletons.
None of the games feature detailed maps or waypoints.
Instead, the game asks you to explore on your own.
And when your exploration leads you down a ladder into a deadly rat mosh pit, you’ll
get acquainted with another thing Souls Games do differently:
CHECKPOINTING
In the 2010s, manual saving was OUT and checkpointing was IN.
Instead of using save rooms or asking you to use a save menu, most games said “we’ll
do it for you.”
Saving happens quietly in the background.
In a game like The Last of Us, it makes sense.
It’s a story-driven game, and when your character experiences the first tender moments
of an ultimately doomed love, you don’t want to worry about smashing that quicksave
button.
The idea is that, when you die, you immediately load back up just moments before you goofed.
You can push on through the game, without losing much progress.
It’s a system designed to minimize friction, so of course, Dark Souls said fuck that.
The games use manual checkpoints called bonfires, or lanterns, or shrines, that let you know
EXACTLY where you’d go back to if you died.
You’d lose any souls you had gathered, and every enemy you killed would come back to
life.
The rules were perfectly clear, and to the furtive millenial, the fear of venturing out
into an uncertain, hostile world, fucking up, losing all of your money, and moving back
home was hashtag relatable.
Which brings me to:
STORYTELLING
The biggest games of the last decade brought in serious actors and stuck tiny little balls
on their faces with the goal of telling more personal, human stories.
They promised twists and subversions and shocking conclusions.
Others featured indexes overflowing with explanations of the world’s details.
Once again, Dark Souls quietly mumbled “no.”
Souls games keep it vague, and I mean real vague.
If you talk to a lot of NPCs, read a lot of item descriptions, or watch a lot of YouTube
videos you can piece together a greater narrative, but it’s also entirely possible to experience
these games as Tone Pieces where you move through the world and feel things: usually
just different flavors of discomfort.
Each environment hints at a story that will never be told in detail.
The horrifying aftermath of a witch hunt seen in the next morning’s light.
A civilization clinging to life in the most precarious place imaginable.
A beautiful monastery with dark secrets.
There’s a ton of power in not telling people what the fuck something is.
I don’t need to know what the Kessel Run is and why it’s impressive that Han Solo
made it in under 12 parsecs.
It’s better if I don’t.
Last but not least, the coup de grace of Dark Souls:
BOSSES
Let’s take a look at some of the top reviewed games of the aughts and look at how they handled
bosses.
Red Dead Redemption: No bosses Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: Bad Bosses
GTA V: No bosses Batman Arkham Asylum: Bad Bosses
Mass Effect 2: No Bosses, then Bad Bosses
I don’t want to be reductive and say that Bosses were totally out of fashion.
Some games like Bayonetta were still holding it down.
But in the beginning of the decade, lots of big games were moving in the direction of
delivering a seamless gameplay and narrative experience, and were reckoning with how boss
fights, an inherently disruptive mechanic, fit into that smooth ride.
Dark Souls said “they are the ride,” and “you are going to die on this ride.”
All of these reversals can best be summarized by something I call:
UNEASE OF USE
Most of the “innovations” of this decade have been solely aimed at making our lives
easier by capitalizing on our most minor discomforts, selling us the promise of an easy life.
Ordering food, calling a cab, buying candles without ever getting anxiety.
Perhaps Miyazaki saw the decade’s trajectory and wished to remind us of what it felt like
to be sometimes inconvenienced, lest we grow too complacent and disconnected from the world.
But I think he was probably just being an asshole.
AAA game devs were honing game experiences to make them smoother and more seamless, and
making sure the player always knew where they should be going and what they should be doing
at any given moment.
For a lot of us, that was helpful and satisfying.
But Souls Games were looking to scratch a different kind of itch, and, as it turns out,
lots of people had that itch.
Whether or not Souls games were really a new genre or just a potent combination of resurfaced
ideas, they resonated with a lot of people.
Critics, youtubers, and online people kept talking about these old school, unpleasant,
ugly games that you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO PLAY and NORMAL people would look at them for a
few minutes and say… really?
But there was no denying their success.
The series has sold over 25 million copies, they won awards.
And they caught on, especially with people who MAKE games.
Their shape, texture, and flavor would resurface in the work of...
IMITATORS AND INNOVATORS
Lords of the Fallen was one of the first.
It added a dialogue system.
And the soulslikes would continue, each tweaking the formula a little bit:
Robot Souls (The Surge 1+2) Ninja Souls (Ni-oh)
Cartoon Souls (Necropolis) Anime Souls (Code Vein)
Karate Souls (Absolver) Garbage Souls (Let it Die)
Cartoon Souls 2 (Ashen) Guns Souls (Remnant: From The Ashes)
And the core mechanics and themes would be adapted back into 2D, landing somewhere between
Dark Souls and classic games like Castevania or Metroid.
Extra Goth Souls (Salt & Sanctuary)
Bug Souls (Hollow Knight)
Catholic Souls (Blasphemous)
And that’s not to mention the score of indie and early access tributes on Steam:
And last, but not least, other long-running franchises adopted Soulsian touches— because
things that are meant to counter the mainstream can be welcomed into the mainstream.
In Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, Ubisoft moved the attack buttons from the face buttons
to the right triggers, borrowed the Souls lock on system, and increased the emphasis
on well timed dodges.
God of War made this shift as well, even adding some boss encounters that would have felt
right at home in a Souls game.
Tell me this big sword man is not a dark soul.
Darksiders 3 was developed with a more measured, souls-inspired combat design, but since their
franchise was historically more of a hack n slash, there was a hack and slash backlash
and they ended up patching in a “classic” mode.
Also, Star Wars is a Dark Souls Game now.
Sorry.
While we’re comparing things to Dark Souls, let’s talk about one of the greatest cultural
impacts of Dark Souls:
COMPARING THINGS TO DARK SOULS
“Dark Souls” became a convenient shorthand for describing a certain type of game.
Specifically, one that used any mechanic that was in a Souls game -- even if that mechanic
wasn’t invented by Dark Souls.
Any game with stamina management or obtuse hidden lore became a “Dark Souls.”
This is absurd.
It would be like referring to every non-linear, gear-gated platformer as a “metroidvania.”
Oh wait.
This is mostly okay.
Comparisons are super valuable in helping people understand new games.
But sometimes people would just use “Dark Souls” to mean “hard” which is WRONG,
and which brings us to our next topic
Getting mad about the misapplication of the “Dark Souls” descriptor.
This was a thing you could do in the Dark Souls of decades, and lots of people chose
to do it.
It was a pedantic response that furthered the public perception that these games and
their community were hostile and unwelcoming, which sucks, and which brings us to our next
topic
Getting mad about getting mad about the misapplication of the darks souls descriptor
And getting mad about getting mad about getting mad about the d
Getting mad about getting mad about getting mad about getting mad about
But back to that thing about the hostility of Souls fans.
Souls games would become part of something that was really big during the Dark Souls
of Decades:
GATEKEEPING- and i’m not talking about the foggy kind
Dark Souls became a litmus test of who was and wasn’t a real “gamer.”
It was a showcase of skill and authenticity.
Hard games weren’t new, but we suddenly had easier access to platforms that would
let real gamers flex.
Before Twitch and Youtube, playing games, much like using the toilet or performing nostril
hair maintenance, was something to be done in the privacy of your own metaphorical or
literal bathroom.
But, since it was the Dark Souls of decades, the once hallowed bathroom of gaming was thrown
open to the world, and web video platforms would be one of the chief places to show off,
scrutinize, or be scrutinized.
While the game’s obtuse nature drew people together to map out its mechanics, secrets,
and strategies, it’s impossible to ignore the !TOXIC! elements of its community.
“Git Gud” became an unsympathetic, trollish reply to people who admitted to having a hard
time with the games.
A bit ironic considering the games have built in cooperation mechanics.
Summoning to help with boss fights.
Notes left to warn of deadly, un-telegraphed traps, or to point out illusory walls that
you could only find through acts of extreme faith or trial and error.
The anonymous cooperative elements of the games were inspired by events in Miyazaki’s
life where strangers came together to help one another, knowing that their relationships
were entirely transient.
Which makes it all the more tragic that lots of people turned the games into a signifier
of rugged individualism and personal accomplishment.
And that’s the disparity of Dark Souls.
Dark Souls can be a big nude man who invades your game and stabs you in the butt, or Dark
Souls can be a big nude man who invades your game and helps you kill god.
Dark Souls taught us that sometimes the path forward won’t be clear, that, sometimes,
it’s okay to be uncomfortable, and it’s always okay to ask for help.
And now, perhaps we can learn from the game one last time, and let first flame of discourse
go unlinked.
What I’m saying is, now that the Dark Souls of decades is over, we never need to talk
about it again.
If you see anyone online talking about Dark Souls after this publish date, please direct
them to this video, and ask them to stop.