Dark Souls (video game)

For the 2011 film, see Dark Souls (film).

Dark Souls
European box art
Developer(s)	From Software
Publisher(s)	JP: From Software NA: Namco Bandai Games EU: Namco Bandai Games AU: Namco Bandai Partners
Director(s)	Hidetaka Miyazaki
Composer(s)	Motoi Sakuraba
Engine	PhyreEngine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows
Release	PlayStation 3 JP: September 22, 2011 NA: October 4, 2011 AU: October 6, 2011 EU: October 7, 2011 Xbox 360 NA: October 4, 2011 AU: October 6, 2011 EU: October 7, 2011 Microsoft Windows August 24, 2012
Genre(s)	Action role-playing, open world
Mode(s)	Single-player, online multiplayer

Dark Souls (ダークソウル, Dāku Souru) is an action role-playing game developed and published for PlayStation 3 by From Software in Japan. It was published for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 by Namco Bandai Games internationally. Previously referred to as Project Dark, Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls. It was released in Japan on September 22, 2011, on October 4 in North America, on October 6 in Australia and on October 7 in Europe of the same year. The game is known for its considerable difficulty, which has prompted much interest and discussion. A PC version of the game has also been announced and will be released in August 2012.

Gameplay

Gameplay consists of dungeon crawling in almost relentlessly hostile environments. The challenging nature of the game provides a foundation of achievement and reward, reinforced by penalties upon player death. Dark Souls takes place in a large and contiguous open world environment, with the player able to travel to and from areas and explore various available paths seamlessly. Bonfires are scattered throughout the world; these represent the sole areas of rest and peace and function as checkpoints. Resting at a bonfire causes all non-boss enemies to respawn, but also refills the player's supply of health flasks, spells, miracles, and pyromancies. The player can be in either undead form or human form, and death in human form reverts the player to undead form. In undead form, the player is unable to kindle bonfires or summon help from other players; at the same time, players in undead form cannot be invaded by other players. Death in either form results in the loss of all carried souls and humanity, both of which act as forms of currency in the world, though they are each used for different purposes. The player has one chance to recollect the souls and humanity by reaching the location of his death; failing this, the items are permanently lost.

Souls are awarded upon killing any enemy, with the amount rewarded generally being proportional to the toughness of the enemy. Humanity on the other hand is significantly rarer. It is required to switch from undead to human form or to kindle bonfires (which itself requires the player to be in human form). Humanity also has several subtle effects on gameplay, such as increasing the item discovery rate or buffing some of the player's resistances. Certain weapons also scale in damage considerably with the possession of humanity.

Dark Souls features an elaborate online mode which is active whenever the console is connected to the internet. The online mode adds numerous dynamic interactions between the individual players, including limited co-op and player versus player, within certain conditions. Communication between players is deliberately limited. If the player is in "party chat" on the 360, the game will be set to offline mode.

The online interactions can facilitate a great amount of PvP activity. Under certain conditions, one player can invade another player's world with the goal of killing the other player. Some areas of the game have been designated unofficial PvP hotspots by the community; in these areas it is common to find hundreds of players either invading or waiting to be invaded in order to engage in 1v1 duels. Two elements of skill are generally involved in PvP: the dueling itself, which relies on reflexes and on-the-spot thinking, and the planning and development of the character build, which involves carefully engineering the character's stats to reap maximum benefits from a chosen configuration of armor and weapons. The PvP community at large engages in on-going "research" in order to understand the nuances of character builds and the various weapons in the game, all of which have unique movesets, forcing analysis of PvP weapons to go beyond just statistics or numbers and to consider the way one weapon will interact with others in actual combat.

Plot

Dark Souls has a minimalistic plot. Events and their significance are often implicit and left to player interpretation rather than fully shown or explained. Much of the story and lore of the world is given to the player through dialogue from characters within the world, item descriptions, or the scarce cutscenes. It is up to the player to put the pieces together.

In the founding of the universe, the earth was unformed, covered in crags, and dragons held sole dominion over the world. However, The Fire of Lords along with the human race eventually came into existence for reasons long lost to time. From the Dark, which gained meaning in contrast to Light from the newly kindled flame, emerged four powerful entities--Nito, the first of the dead; the Witch of Izalith and her daughters of chaos; Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights; and the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten--who harnessed the Souls of Lords to combat the dragons, eventually overthrowing them and launching humanity and their new lordly gods into a golden era known as the Age of Fire.

The player character is an Undead, who has yet to become Hollow. The protagonist escapes from the northern Undead Asylum with the help of another Undead and learns of the prophecy concerning a chosen Undead who leaves the Undead Asylum in pilgrimage and rings the two Bells of Awakening in the land of the ancient lords, Lordran.

Once the character has rung the Bells of Awakening, one in the heights of the Undead Parish and the other far, far below in the poisonous swamp at the base of Blighttown, the gate leading to Sen's Fortress and Anor Londo is opened, and the Primordial Serpent Kingseeker Frampt is awoken. He tells the player that he or she is the Chosen Undead who must succeed Lord Gwyn and remove the affliction of the Darksign. It is implied that Frampt is very old and has awaited the protagonist's arrival for a very long time. To achieve this given task, the character must get the Lordvessel from the land of Anor Londo, a forsaken city bathed in sunlight. When the task is done, the character must obtain the four powerful Lord Souls: one from Seath the Scaleless, the proud dragon who betrayed his own out of deep anger over his lack of immortality; one from the Four Kings, ancient rulers of New Londo who fell to Dark and were banished to the Abyss; one from the Bed of Chaos, a mass of life and the source of all demons which was the result of the failed experiments of the Witch of Izalith to recreate the primeval Flame; and Gravelord Nito, the first of the dead.

However, in the Abyss if the player has not placed the Lordvessel on the altar at that point then he or she can instead meet Darkstalker Kaathe, a different Primordial Serpent who opposes Frampt. After informing the player that he or she is a direct descendent of the pygmy, who obtained the Dark Soul, Kaathe will present the protagonist with a different path: to end the Age of Fire and "usher in the Age of Dark." Kaathe stated that Gwyn had wished to "avoid the course of nature," prolonged the Age of Fire, and in doing so branded undead with the Darksign, which only caused suffering. In Linking the Fire, Gwyn sacrificed himself, becoming the Lord of Cinder. The Age of Dark will erase this curse. Kaathe implies that the prophecy of the Chosen Undead espoused by Frampt is a lie crafted by the gods to trick the player into sacrificing himself in order to prolong the tyranny of the old order of deities; indeed, Kaathe implies that the deity status of Gwyn et. al. is only granted to them by the primordial Flame so long as it is kindled. The player must come to his or her own conclusion regarding whether Frampt or Kaathe is telling the truth.

After offering the four Lord Souls to the Lordvessel, with the help of either Frampt or Kaathe, the character must go on to defeat Gwyn. Once the character has slain him, the player is given a vague choice which affects the ending. The player may choose to either sacrifice himself in order to re-kindle the Flame and prolong the rule of the existing order of deities or to let the Flame wither and die, ushering in the Age of Dark (or of Humanity as Kaathe would suggest).

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	(PS3) 88.56% (X360) 88.43%
Metacritic	(PS3) 89/100 (X360) 89/100
GameStats	(PS3) 8.9/10 (X360) 8.9/10

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	A
Edge	9/10
Eurogamer	(UK) 9/10 (Italy) 9/10 (Portugal) 9/10 (Sweden) 10/10
Famitsu	37/40
G4	5/5
GamePro
GameRevolution	A-
GameSpot	9.5/10
GamesRadar+	9/10
GamesTM	9/10
GameTrailers	9.2/10
GameZone	9/10
IGN	9.0/10
PlayStation Official Magazine – UK	9/10
Official Xbox Magazine (UK)	9/10
PALGN	10/10
Play	90%
PSM3	9.1/10
Metro GameCentral	9/10
The Telegraph

Awards

Publication	Award
Double Fine Productions, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Revolution, IncGamers, Q-Games	Game of the Year
GameTrailers, Games.cz	Best Role-Playing Game
GameZone, TeamXbox	Best RPG (Runner-Up)
GameZone	Best Action/Adventure
Famitsu	Award of Excellence
Game Informer, GameSpot	Best Boss Fights

Dark Souls received universal critical acclaim. Famitsu gave the game a highly positive review, scoring it 37 out of 40, based on four scores of 9, 9, 9, and 10. One of the reviewers for Dark Souls described it as "a very hardcore dark-fantasy RPG" that is "role-playing right down to the roots," and stated that the "massive field map and powerful enemies serve to rev up both your sense of adventure and your sense of dread." Another reviewer stated that "the sheer happiness you get after the trial-and-error pays off and you overcome the challenge is absolutely impossible to replicate."

GameSpot scored Dark Souls a 9.5/10, complimenting just about every aspect of it. Much praise was given to the online system, as well as the sense of jubilation felt when conquering boss fights after numerous failed attempts. They also suggested that casual gamers may struggle to progress, whereas RPG enthusiasts will thrive on the difficulty.

IGN gave Dark Souls a 9.0/10, praising the well-thought out level design, variety, strong emphasis on online features, excessively dark tone and atmosphere and deep gameplay. They also noted that it is not a game that one can simply jump into and play for plain enjoyment. They went as far to say that it is not a game for the timid and that the game requires both skill and strategy almost all the time. While praising the extremely high difficulty, they stated that "there's a difference between punishing, and downright unfair."

Eurogamer gave Dark Souls 9/10, saying "If adventure is to surprise and mystify you and invite you to uncover the secrets of a forgotten world, then Dark Souls is a great adventure game. If entertainment is fun without failure and progress without pain, you'll have to find it somewhere else. But you'll be missing out on one of the best games of the year."

Writing for Slate, Michael Thomsen asked if a 100-hour video game was ever worthwhile, writing:

There is real beauty in Dark Souls. It reveals that life is more suffering than pleasure, more failure than success, and that even the momentary relief of achievement is wiped away by new levels of difficulty. It is also a testament to our persistence in the face of that suffering, and it offers the comfort of a community of other players all stuck in the same hellish quagmire. Those are good qualities. That is art. And you can get all of that from the first five hours of Dark Souls. The remaining 90 or so offer nothing but an increasingly nonsensical variation on that experience.

Jason Killingsworth wrote a response to Thomsen's review for Edge:

Thomsen mentions that we could use that 100 hours to train for a marathon. Dark Souls’ vertigo-inducing breadth makes it the gaming equivalent of a marathon...Reading War And Peace? Dark Souls immerses us in war, and lots of it. But it also lets us taste the most incredible peace – sublime moments of quiet interspersed between the violence like rests in a musical score...Taking a roadtrip from New York to Los Angeles and back again? Dark Souls invites us on a journey that makes the sights of middle America pale in comparison...invites us to criss-cross a world. To adore games is to be an insatiable wanderer. When I finished my long trek through Dark Souls, do you know what I did? I clicked on the New Game+ option and began all over again. And I didn’t look sheepishly at the clock on the wall to beg its permission.

Awards

Game Revolution gave Dark Souls the Community Choice Game of the Year award. IncGamers also gave it the "Game of the Year" award. Q-Games' Dylan Cuthbert and Double Fine Productions' Brad Muir chose Dark Souls as Game of the Year. Electronic Gaming Monthly's Eric L. Patterson chose it as Game of the Year. GameTrailers gave it the "Best Role-Playing Game" award, while also nominating it for the "Best Multiplayer Game", "Best Trailer" and "Game of the Year" awards. GameZone gave the game the "Best Action/Adventure" award and chose it as the runner-up for the "Best RPG" award.

The Daily Telegraph gave the game the "Best Integration of Online Features" award, and nominated it for the awards of "Best Director" (Hidetaka Miyazaki), "Best Level Design", "Best Sound Design", "Best Original Score" (Motoi Sakuraba), "Best Developer" (From Software), and "Game of the Year". TeamXbox gave it an honorable mention as the runner-up for the "Best RPG" award. 1UP.com gave it the "Most Rewarding Game" award. Game Informer gave it the award for "Best Boss Fight" (Sif). It also received the "Best Boss Fights" awards from GameSpot, including both the Editors' Choice and Readers' Choice awards. Famitsu gave it an Award of Excellence in its 2012 awards ceremony.

PC version

Following the game's release, many gamers expressed their hope for a PC version of the game. Namco Bandai administrator, Tony Shoupinou responded on their page that a PC version was possible, saying:

There is always possibilities to have games adapted on PC and the good news is that Dark Souls is not a 100% typical Console game so the adaptation is possible. Now to make things happen, let's say the demand has to be properly done. Someone to make a successful petition?

On January 6, 2012, fans started a petition to bring Dark Souls to PC, with over 92,000 people signing it. On January 13, Tony Shoupinou replied by saying:

Damn you are amazing! I honestly wasn’t expecting such a massive support. My boss(es) even came to talk to me about this, after it exploded all around the world. If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it. The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this. I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant person at Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort.

The PC version of the game was confirmed on April 7, 2012 via the PC Action magazine. Re-branded as Prepare to Die Edition, it will come out in August 2012 and feature new content, including bosses, enemies, equipment, and NPCs.. It is unknown if the new content will be released for the consoles.

Soon after it was announced that Dark Souls for PC would use Games for Windows - LIVE, fans started another petition, this time to have the service removed. The petition gained over 20,000 signatures in 5 days.

External links

• Official website Template:Ja icon
• Official website Template:En icon