Why I love Dark Souls

Everyone and their dog, their desk and especially their neighbor heard about Dark Souls. The game is kind of a cultural phenomenon in the gaming world. And I absolutely hate it for that. All this 'the game is hard', 'git gud' and so on is tarnishing the ESSENCE of the game. In Dark Souls, you are dropped into a dying world as a frail undead who just wants to live.

In the first game you are the 'Chosen Undead', but as the soon to be dead knight commonly called Oscar says, 'Thou who art undead art chosen', so that title applies to 90% of the NPCs and to all the players. You are not special. You are one of many who tried to break the cycle. And (spoiler), in the end you fail. The cycle remains unbroken, your determination only giving you one of two choices: end this particular loop faster than it would occur naturally or prolong it by sacrificing yourself.

In Dark Souls II, you are an undead pilgrim, trying to cure your affliction with the undead curse. The adventure is a lot more personal, but still, you are again one of many, as said by the firekeepers at the beginning of the game. Your glamorous title becomes 'Bearer of the Curse', showing again that you are nothing special. Dark Souls II in it's first half acts as a retelling of the mythos of the first game, with callbacks to areas and bosses. The Gutter and Black Gulch are Blighttown, The Rotten is Nito, the Shaded Woods are the Darkroot Garden, the Lost Sinner is an undead who failed their quest and so on, but then the game throws you a curveball and gives you the chance to escape the neverending cycle through the power of 3 crowns which you must collect from 3 decadent kings. With the power of the crowns, your character actually succeeds in a way. They are still undead, but they are freed from hollowing, the process caused by repeatedly dying and becoming desperate, through which all undead lose their minds and become hostile to everything that has a soul. You witness this process with the comrades that you make throughout the game, especially a character called Lucatiel of Mirrah.

In Dark Souls III, you are an unkindled rather than an undead, but functionally you are the same. The in-world difference is the fact that you are woken up from your grave because old lords of this time are not tending to the first flame, the mcguffin that counts down the time before the next loop. The unkindled are, again, many, as seen by the size of the cemetery you wake up in. The world is a jumbled mess, because of the cycle and you will notice areas from previous games in an even more ruined state than before. The mythos is again repeated, but with a twist. This is the game in which you can finally break the cycle, giving a definitive ending to the story of this world.

Now, for the kicker of this post. You may have noticed that I keep calling the player one of many. The game emphasises the community aspect, making the players work together to assemble the puzzle that is the lore, to help or hinder each other, but also for guidance through the games' worlds. You can summon a player to help you through a difficult area and even beat a hard boss, you can search online for maps,
quests and hidden areas (although I would have liked an in-game system for those), you can invade or be summoned as an invader to stall another player, all of which are weaved in with the lore.

All in all, the games are as good as the community, and if you are willing to get past the few vocal elitist twats, you will find a nice group of people who engage in speculation with each other and who would happily take the blow of a greatsword for one of their fellow undead.