Time and Digital Gaming
This week introduced us to boundary objects, and to thinking of technology in ways that other people see them. A major boundary object in the sphere of video games is the Souls series.
The Souls (sometimes Souls-borne) series is a collection of five games developed by From Software, all of which share similar mechanics and design philosophy. The marketing for the series emphasizes its difficulty, and to be fair, the games are uncompromising. The player controls a single character that must travel a game world full of deadly enemies and large scale boss encounters, navigating a twisting landscape that often loops back on itself, allowing the player to open shortcuts. Though it has RPG elements that allow the player to increase their character’s power, the primary mode of progression is player skill. The game can be beaten with starting stats and weaponry if the player is skilled enough, and the world record for a Dark Souls All Boss speedrun is just over an hour. However, the game punishes player complacency harshly, as even the most basic enemies can and will kill an overconfident player. Player drop all their currency upon death, and must return to the place they died to recover it. If they die a second time before they recover their Souls (Blood Echoes in Bloodborne), the currency is lost for good.
Most of the games have enjoyed critical and popular praise, and have both their supporters and detractors. There is a sub-culture of gamers who hold the Souls series up as the epitome of the art form, with an unfortunate undertone of elitism and exclusion. A major criticism of the game is the lack of “sign posting” (a term used for indications of what or where the player should do or go next) and lack of clarity on item and stat descriptions. These are held up by the most dedicated fans as good things, as they keep the “casuals” from playing the game. Other gamers opine that the games would be well served with an “easy” mode, to allow less skilled or disabled gamers from enjoying the series, a view seen as outright heresy by the “git gud” clique. A sizable chuck of the fanbase believes the games would be retroactively ruined by the inclusion of an easy mode, though anecdotally they seem unable to articulate why they believe that.
It’s important to point out that the difficultly of the games is perhaps overstated. They certainly aren’t easy, but virtually any able-bodied player should be able to complete them if they decide to. The amount of time it would take will vary, but enemies always spawn in the same locations and only have so many attack patterns, which players learn to recognize and attack during openings. It hasn’t stopped the Souls games from becoming a rallying point for both “hard core” and “accessibility first” gamers, for many of the same reasons.
