A Dark Soul-crushing exercise in pure, sustained terror

From Software’s Dark Souls is a videogame in the purest and most impenetrable sense. It is a game that doesn’t push you over the finish line. Every time you vanquish an enemy it doesn’t shower you in plaudits and encouragement, it delivers something far more fulfilling and tangible: real satisfaction. Much has been said about the Soul’s games crushing difficulty and yes, there is a learning curve steeper than any game of recent memory within the first five minutes. However, break through this and accept the truth that the weediest ghoul wearing a nappy can kill you in a couple of flurries of his rusted sword and you will be swallowed whole by the beautiful, life-consuming darkness of Dark Souls.

There is very little in the way of plot exposition which further pushes that Dark Souls is a game and does not adhere to the rules of narrative that films and television do. As with all games, though it is all too little the case, the story should come from the player having control over the action. That is what games have that no other entertainment medium can challenge, the player moulds the story out of the tools they have been given. That is what Dark Souls does better than any game: It is perpetually weaving tales of terror, survival and victory on the fly. 

The difficulty of Dark Souls allows no room for mistakes or half-arsed gaming creating an unavoidable sense on immersion. Dark Souls forces you to follow its rules: you get stabbed – you die, you roll off the crumbled brickwork of a spire – you die, you back down a narrow corridor and try to swing your sword at your enemy only for it to clash with the wall you’re pressed up against - your enemies flail at your helpless torso, you die. Are you starting to see a pattern? As much as it may seem so to the neutered gamers used to only jumping when Naughty Dog wants you to, this is not unfair. It is very much the opposite. Harsh but unwaveringly fair. Each successive enemy you defeat leaves you with a quiver of pride and relief for your accomplishment because you, you with total control of your chosen weapon killed his soulless arse. This is all achievable due to the precise and responsive combat. After thirty or so hours when you feel you’re starting to get the hang of the mechanics, you begin to teach yourself the exact length and weight of each swing of your sword to exact your revenge on the bastard that the naive, twenty hour younger version of yourself carelessly waltzed into. This being Dark Souls he promptly cut you down while looking aspirational in his awesome, black plate metal armour.

This leads on to Dark Souls most progressive facet: its unique online integration. After your carefree bandit into uncharted territory goes unavoidably awry, you leave a charming bloodstain marking to other lonely wanderers that they don’t have it as bad as you. Yet. Approach the stain and you can touch it revealing the last moments of the doomed players existence. Perhaps this warns others of the dangers just round the next corner or prompts them to think “why the hell did they take a running jump off that cliff face?” Not all of the wealth of interconnecting online options are there to aid your bleak progress. Another of the most notable of the online features is that of the message system. It boils down to an in-game Twitter system that allows you to leave prescribed scribbles of help, hope and appreciation. Be wary though because after being lead to many deaths with promises of salvation and goodies it would seem that, as if we needed reassuring, a lot of folk who play games are twats.

The fact that all Dark Souls games are threaded together also allows for the most hideously tense experience in gaming: Invasion. Your insecure feeling of stability in Lordran can be shattered in a split-second by the knowledge that somewhere in the world around you a player has invaded your game. A dark figure lavished in a shimmering, blood-red mist approaches you, he bows silently, draws his sword out of magic before your eyes, your stomach sinks and then you ready yourself. Controller sweaty in your mitts, you return the solemn salute. After a fairly embarrassing dance around your adversary you attack only to fall into his defence thus lowering yours. He cuts you down. “You were defeated” stains your screen again. Your manic trembles subside and you slump back in your chair gutted. But you are left with something that other games can only provide the illusion of: a goal. A personal vendetta against the game and, with the knowledge of an entire die-hard community invisibly by your side, you are drawn back in for the most compulsive exercise in sustained terror and immersion of this millennium.