Dark Souls is such a widely discussed video game that even prefacing a piece about Dark Souls by talking about the breadth of discussion the game has inspired has become a bit of a cliche. It’s almost impossible to have an interest in video games without being at least familiar with Dark Souls, even if its notorious difficulty bars you from trying it yourself. But, more important than its difficulty and only slightly less legendary, is the game’s carefully crafted world.
When a player starts Dark Souls, after presumably spending at least an hour in its overwhelmingly specific character designer, they find themselves in one of the game’s most obvious levels: the "Undead Asylum.” The asylum immediately teaches you nearly everything you’ll need to know mechanically about the game: introducing the checkpoint system, the penalty for death, and the way the game handles doors extremely quickly. It’s a tiny section of the game, but it’s strikingly effective at communicating tons of information without a traditional “tutorial.”
Once the player exits the "Undead Asylum”, they find themselves at the Firelink Shrine, which acts as something of a connective hub for many of the areas in the rest of the game. From there, the player meets a couple of non-player characters, or NPC’s, with nothing but vague hints to offer and are pushed off to explore to their heart’s content. This is where Dark Souls goes from clever to brilliant.
From Firelink Shrine in the beginning, the player has a few options of locations to explore. Everywhere they go, they will have something to do, and it will usually give them the option to change something in the wider world. For instance, if a player is especially brave and happens to have an in-game item called the “Master Key”, they can travel into the depths and face one of the most challenging areas in the game: Blighttown. From Blighttown, the player can ring a bell, which unlocks a door on the far end of the map and opens up access to another area: Sen’s Fortress, which they can access by returning to the Firelink Shrine and heading down a different path.
This spoke-and-hub structure carries through nearly every area of Dark Souls; you’ll usually complete a task in one area, return to the Shrine and head to another area where something has been altered, and then you rinse and repeat. This structure makes the repetition of playing through one area over and over a bit less daunting because you always have an eye open for what’s changed since the last time you visited and what you’ll need to do next to progress.
In addition, by connecting nearly everything to one central area, the game is able to accomplish an even more incredible sense of scope the few times it takes you somewhere completely disconnected, like the desolate castle of Anor Londo. By convincing the player that the world they inhabit is small but open, Dark Souls instills a sense of grandeur and surprise when it forces the player into an area that suggests both a wider scope and fewer opportunities to leave.
Because Dark Souls is so meticulous in its design, it is able to communicate conflicting ideas to the player. The world feels claustrophobic and freeing, miniature and immense and empty and crowded all at once. I has been said before, but it cannot be said enough: the world of Dark Souls is an absolute magic trick.
Sorrel Kerr-Jung is a freshman studying games and animation at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnist do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Tell Sorrel by tweeting her at @gendertoad.
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