Dark Souls

You begin Dark Souls locked up in an asylum. You were born different, your very existence a threat to a dying empire, and you are punished becuase of this. Rescued by another person much like yourself, you are forcibly thrust out into an unforgiving world designed to kill you at every turn.

The goal of Dark Souls is simple: ring the Bell of Awakening at the top of the Undead Parish. Fighting your way through mindless undead, large monsters, death traps, and a fire-breathing dragon, you ring the bell, and the goal changes: ring a second Bell of Awakening in the depths of Blighttown. To even reach Blighttown, you will need to navigate multiple other dangerous areas, fight enemies more dangerous than the previous ones you've fought, all while trying not to get lost. Once in Blighttown, you are knee deep in a poison swamp that will kill you if you are unprepared, swarming with large bugs, club and boulder wielding ogres, and snipers armed with darts that only exacerbate the diseases you can catch. A half-woman, half-spider creature that sprays molten lava is the final obstacle between you and the Bell.

You finally, after many hours and many deaths, ring the two bells. The goals change once again. Now you must travel to the distant land of Anor Londo. To get to Anor Londo, you have to pass through Sen's Fortress, which has opened following the ringing of the two bells. Sen's Fortress is riddled with traps to stop a promising adventurer in their tracks.

Anor Londo itself is home to the elite knights of a fallen empire, protecting an empty throne. In the throne room itself, the elite of the elite: Dragonslayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough, the subsequent battle against them possibly being the toughest challenge you have faced thus far. Defeat them, and you will meet up with Princess Gwynevere. Gwynevere is not real; Anor Londo does not exist anymore. Everything you have been through in this new land, everything that Ornstein, Smough, the knights, and the giants have been protecting has been an illusion. Attacking Gwynevere reveals this, and plunges the grand and bright land into a permanent darkness. You may wonder what the point of this whole journey is at this point, but you have no alternative but to press on.

Whether she lives or dies, Gwynevere gives you an item called the Lordvessel. The Lordvessel is needed to collect the souls of the Great Lords. Your goal changes one more time: kill the four Lords that are keeping the world in a state of decay for their own desperate reasons, all to maintain the little power they have left.

You continue on. Travelling to Lost Izalith, a forgotten ruin that trades the poison swamps of Blighttown for large pools of lava. The Bed of Chaos rules this area, a matriarchal witch mutated beyond recognition due to her pursuit of stronger magic. Beneath the intimidating exterior is the real witch: reduced to a pitiful, enfeebled insect. Then to the Duke's Archive, a massive library turned makeshift prison. Filled to the brim with books so full of knowledge, that they have sent readers into madness, including the Duke himself, a dragon who betrayed his own race to side with the Lords. Then the Tomb of the Giants, a pitch black cave with predictably low visibility. As the name suggest, the tomb is home to skeletons. Human skeletons, giant skeletons, living towers of bones, and most distressing: the reanimated, undeveloped bones of human children. Then there's New Londo, a flooded city that hides a terrible secret once you drain the water: the flood was created on purpose, killing a untold number of people, whose corpses you walk over as if they were no different from the road. The people of New Londo were the closest thing the Lords had to an actual threat, and had to be taken out in drastic fashion.

You get the four souls, and place them in the Lordvessel. The actual, final challenge of Dark Souls awaits: entering the Kiln of the First Flame, defeating Lord Gwyn, and taking his place in order to maintain the Age of Fire. Or, you can kill him, and reject the fire, ushering in an uncertain new era: the Age of Dark.

You're finished. Dark Souls is over. All the fighting. The long journey through multiple lands. The people you've met along the way, and had to kill after they lost their sense of self and went mad. The many failures, and just as many successes you've had. What happens now?

You're back in your asylum cell.

The Age of Fire continues. The world is the same as it was before you set out on your journey. Everyone is back to life. Gwyn and his Lords are still ruling a dying land. The only difference is you. You've kept your equipment and abilities, as well as your knowledge of Dark Souls' world. But the world is still the same.

Dark Souls doesn't end.

The story and world of Dark Souls remains the same, but the in-game difficulty is raised in order to continue challenging your character. You can finish the game a second time, and you'll be back in a cell, difficulty slightly higher than last time. The cruelty of the world becoming more apparent, in spite of your own personal strength. You think you have everything figured out, and then you realize that you don't have a clue. Your growth as a person feels so irrelevant because the world will not fucking change. In spite of all you've done, the past will always come back to haunt you. Dark Souls is a difficult challenge, that turns into a power fantasy, that then becomes a nihilistic exercise. You tried to make a difference, and it didn't matter.

Your success and failure mean nothing. A meaningless being that will be forgotten longer than they will be remembered. Countless numbers of would-be adventurers came before you; the only reason you are considered the "Chosen Undead" is because you are the only one that hasn't failed, not because you're anything special. If you do fail? There will be another sucker that will come along after you.

Humans in Dark Souls have one fear above all else: going "Hollow." Becoming a Hollow is a fate worse than death. A Hollow is someone who has lost their humanity. A person who has lost their purpose, their reason for being, and it reflects in their physical appearance, and causes them to lose their mind to the grip of madness. Nothing more than a pitiable husk of what was once a person. This is a world where people are told over and over again that they don't matter, that nothing they do matters, and these points are repeated over and over until they give in to despair. When one refuses to give in, their accomplishments are instead made to be irrelevant. I spent so much time going over Dark Souls' in-game progression because, out of all the demons and death traps, they pale in comparison to the cruelest beast of all: insignificance.

Pain and suffering in an uncaring world. Rotted ghouls at the top that care about power above all. Seeing others accept this reality, willingly becoming mindless creatures only interested in harming others. Those who refuse this must then struggle with not just the world, but with your own worth and identity. Dark Souls feels more relevant in 2026 than it did during its release in 2011. A time where everything feels more worthless than ever.

Or maybe I'm just really fucking depressed. Who knows?