Soulsbourne Die Twice
From Software is a company that creates games that challenge a persons determination and their tenacity to put up with how difficult their games are. The original Dark Souls full title sums up the series pretty well, “Prepare to Die”, as you will fall down many times. Yet, each time you fall down you will stand up stronger and fight that boss to victory.
Starting with the original games by From Soft we have King’s Field, one of the first games for the PlayStation and one that not too many people have seen the end of due to how bizarre the story is set up. It was all riddles and puzzles that very few people had the patience to solve and continue onwards with. Pair this with the difficulty of the game led to one of the most difficult games of all time. Throughout all the King’s Field games and all of the From Software games, there was one weapon that stayed throughout all of them, this being the Moonlight Greatsword, except for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice due to its nature of only having your original weapon. This one item began a long train of items that could be found in every From Soft game leading up to the most irritating of them all, the Pendant. The Pendant was an item that had no use yet throughout the years' people continuously thought that there had to be a use for it, hit walls here or there and perhaps something may happen. Yet, this was all for naught as the game creators confirmed it was just a useless item! After the King’s Field games came Demons Souls, the birth of the Souls games which are legendary for their difficulty and puzzles. Demons Souls released February 5th, 2009, so over 10 years ago from when this post was created! Then came the big one, the most hated and loved game of its genre, Dark Souls, a game that still affects the gaming market today. It was released September 22nd, 2011 and its story drew people in from all around. Starting with the beginning being a no one in the bottom of a prison rotting away with the rest of the undead, to you eventually reaching the First Flame and slaying Gwyn to either kindle the First Flame or let it die out and lead to an age of Dark. This idea of kindling the First Flame or letting it die out carries through to Dark Souls III where the series finally ends.
In each game, the final boss is talked about very lightly at first yet as the games continue forward you begin to see exactly who these people are and what they have done in the world. From Gwyn who enslaved humanity to the Dark Sign to the Soul of Cinder who is the apotheosis of each and every person who has linked the flame previously. Each game begins with you, the main character, being trapped in some prison or grave and ends with you either ascending to a Dark Throne or perishing to continue the age of Fire. Then we have Bloodborne, a game that took incredibly inspiration from Lovecraftian horror with the main fear in the game being what is occurring next.
Bloodborne in and of itself created fear in the most primal way possible, with nothing being the same between each area, from a giant man-eating spider to an ancient deity who is host to a Nightmare. The story throughout every single game expands on this fear of what you do not know, and the base mechanics change with each game. Dark Souls is heavy on shielding to Bloodborne being all about how to dodge and finishing off with Sekiro being all about how to parry each and every type of weapon. Yet, the ideas from Bloodborne of Lovecraftian horror drew in hundreds of consumers for the thrill that comes with triumphing over something so grotesque and horrible as a fallen god or a man who gave into temptation and became a beast. This idea of a man giving into their inner beast is somewhat used throughout all of the games with Aldrich — one of the Lords of Cinder in Dark Souls III — gorging himself on humans until he devoured a god and became who he was. Even in Dark Souls II, the idea is prevalent with the Covetous Demon, who coveted so much that it became the big Jabba the Hutt ripoff that it is.
Finally, with the latest game released by From Software, we have Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. A game where you start out as a shinobi who has more or less given up on life until he sees a letter at the bottom of the well he is contained in and goes to save his lord. When himself and his lord almost make it out of the prison he is confronted by Genichiro Ashina who either cuts off your arm, or you beat him and someone else cuts off your arm. The end result is the same as Wolf, the player character, dies at the end of the tutorial. Having you die to actually progress the story is something that From Soft has done only once in its past games. That was with Demons Souls, in which you either kill the Demon at the end of the tutorial and are charred to a crisp by the Dragon God, or you die to the Demon at the end of the tutorial and are brought to the Nexus where your journey truly begins. Whilst in Sekiro you are brought to the Carver and he replaces your arm with a prosthetic. Each game has a unique way of starting out and a story that if you pay close enough attention can enthrall even the least interested in stories to want to find out how it all will end. Yet, in the end from Dark Souls to Demon’s Souls to Bloodborne and finally to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice we see a trend in how well received games of their legendary difficulty are. Their stories enthrall the player and constantly pull them in to see what minor changes they can make to end the game as either the dark version of themselves or the version who sacrifices themselves for the continuation of a fatal age.
