| Dark Souls | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Action role-playing |
| Developer | FromSoftware |
| Publisher | Bandai Namco Entertainment |
| Creator | Hidetaka Miyazaki |
| Composers |
|
| Platforms | PlayStation 3,Xbox 360,Windows,PlayStation 4,Xbox One,Nintendo Switch |
| First release | Dark Souls September 22, 2011 |
| Latest release | Dark Souls: Remastered May 24, 2018 |
Dark Souls[a] is adark fantasyaction role-playing game series developed byFromSoftware and published byBandai Namco Entertainment. Created byHidetaka Miyazaki, the series began with the release ofDark Souls (2011) and has seen two sequels,Dark Souls II (2014) andDark Souls III (2016). It has received critical acclaim, with its highlevel of difficulty being among its most discussed aspects, while the firstDark Souls is often cited as one of thegreatest games of all time. The series had shipped over 39 million copies worldwide as of 2025[update].[1] Other FromSoftware games, includingDemon's Souls,Bloodborne,Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, andElden Ring, share several related concepts and led to the creation of theSoulslike subgenre.
The games take place within the land of Lordran, Drangleic, and Lothric, respectively, where the player's character fights against knights, dragons, phantoms, demons, and other monstrous or supernatural entities. The accretion, loss, and recovery of souls are central to the narrative and gameplay ofDark Souls games. These games are linked through their setting and an overarching cyclic narrative centering around fire, and are linked through common themes and elements, including interactions with phantoms and battles with demons. At the end of each game, characters may reignite the "first flame" or allow it to fade, recurring a choice others have made before.
TheDark Souls games are played in athird-person perspective, and focus on exploring interconnected environments while fighting enemies with weapons and magic. Players battlebosses to progress through the story, while interacting withnon-playable characters. The protagonist of eachDark Souls game can have a varying gender, appearance, name, and starting class viacharacter creation. Players can choose between classes, including knights, barbarians, thieves, and mages. Each class has its own starting equipment andabilities that can be tailored to the player's experience and choices as they progress. The player gains souls from gameplay battles which act as bothexperience points to level up and as currency to buyitems. Souls gained are usually proportional to the difficulty of fighting certain enemies; the more difficult an enemy, the more souls the player will gain from defeating it.
One of the core mechanics of the series is the use of how it handles progress, death, and player improvement.Bonfires serve as a checkpoint within the series, restoring all health and other critical resources when used, but also respawning most enemies and obstacles, making repeated trips back to safety untenable for forward progress. Upon losing all of theirhealth points anddying, players lose their souls and appear back at the bonfire where they last rested. If the player can return to their point of death, their bloodstain, without dying again, they can regain all lost souls.[2] If the player dies again before reaching their bloodstain, the souls are permanently gone.[2] Notably, using a bonfire manually and respawning at one after death have identical effects, save for the player losing their currency at their place of death, which can be retrieved with no penalty. In this way the player is encouraged to not fear death, as no progress is lost so long as they can learn from their mistakes.[citation needed] As the player retraces their steps after death, they will naturally defeat more enemies, gaining more souls and allowing their character to gain experience alongside the player themselves.
Online interaction in theDark Souls games is integrated into the single-player experience. Throughout areas of the game, players can briefly see the actions of other players as ghosts in the same area that may show hidden passages or switches. When a player dies, a bloodstain can be left in other players game world and when activated can show a ghost playing out their final moments, indicating how that person died and potentially helping other players online to avoid the same fate in advance. Players can leave messages on the ground that can help other players with tips and warnings. Multiplayer can be engaged in bothplayer versus player combat andcooperative gameplay using invasion or summoning mechanics.[3][4] Players can also rely on covenants, which serve as "factions" that can allow players to delve further into the multiplayer experience.
| 2011 | Dark Souls |
|---|---|
| 2012 | |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | Dark Souls II |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | Dark Souls III |
Dark Souls is the first game in the series; it is considered aspiritual successor toDemon's Souls (2009).[5][6] FromSoftware wanted to develop a sequel toDemon's Souls, but Sony's ownership of the intellectual property prevented them from doing so on other platforms.[7] It was released in 2011 for PlayStation 3 andXbox 360.[8] In 2012,Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition was released forWindows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, featuring the base game and theArtorias of the Abyssdownloadable content.[9] The game takes place in the fictional kingdom of Lordran. Players assume the role of a cursed human character who escapes from theNorthern Undead Asylum and sets out to discover the fate of undead humans like themselves. The plot ofDark Souls is primarily told through environmental details, in-game itemflavor text, and dialogue withnon-playable characters (NPCs). Players must piece together clues in order to understand the story, rather than being told the story through more traditional means, such as throughcutscenes.Dark Souls and its predecessorDemon's Souls garnered recognition due to the series' high level of difficulty.[3][10][11][12][13] A version featuring some graphical and gameplay enhancements,Dark Souls: Remastered, was released in May 2018.[14]
Dark Souls II was first announced in late 2012 during theSpike Video Game Awards. This is the only game in the series where director Hidetaka Miyazaki did not reprise his role, although he was still involved in supervision.[15][16] It was released in 2014 for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.[17] In 2015, an updated version featuringThe Lost Crowns downloadable content was released for Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,PlayStation 4, andXbox One, under the titleDark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin[18] - with the latter two platforms receiving retail releases.[19] The game takes place in the kingdom of Drangleic, where the player must find a cure for the undead curse.[4] Although set in the same universe as the previous game, there is no direct story connection toDark Souls.[20]
Dark Souls III was released in 2016 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.[21] The gameplay is paced faster than previousSouls installments,[22] which was attributed in part to the gameplay ofBloodborne.[23] The game takes place in the kingdom of Lothric, where the player must end the cycle of linking the Flame. In 2017, the complete version containing the base game and both expansions (Ashes of Ariandel andThe Ringed City) was released, under the titleDark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition.Dark Souls III was both critically and commercially successful, with critics calling it a worthy and fitting conclusion to the series. It sold over 10 million copies by 2020, making it the fastest-selling game in Bandai Namco's history at the time[24][25] (until the record was beaten byElden Ring).[26] In 2015, Miyazaki said thatDark Souls III would likely be the last of the series, with FromSoftware choosing to move onto new games of unrelated IPs in the future.[27]
Acomic book byTitan Comics based on the series debuted alongside the release ofDark Souls III in 2016.[28] AKickstarter campaign for a licensed board game by Steamforged Games,Dark Souls: The Board Game, was also announced around the same time.[29] The campaign was funded within the first three minutes of its launch and was released in April 2017.[30][31]
In February 2017, music from the series byMotoi Sakuraba was performed by a live orchestra at theSalle Pleyel concert hall inParis.[32] In September of that year, a limited edition vinyl box set containing the soundtracks of all three games was released in Europe.[33] In Japan, a box set containing the enhanced versions of all three games for the PlayStation 4, the soundtracks for each,bookends, artwork prints, and dictionaries detailing every in-gameitem was released on May 24, 2018.[34] The romanticism of Dark Souls III setting has been the topic of analysts, emphasizing the sublime aspects it draws.[35]
Released in 2009 for thePlayStation 3,Demon's Souls is considered the spiritual predecessor to theDark Souls series.[36][37] It has also been described as aspiritual successor to theKing's Field series of games,[5][38] while at the same time being described as a separate entity "guided by differing core game design concepts."[39] It also drew inspiration fromvideo games such asIco,[40][41]The Legend of Zelda,[39] and FromSoftware'sOtogi: Myth of Demons,[42] as well asmanga such asBerserk,Saint Seiya andJoJo's Bizarre Adventure.[43]
Unlike its successors,Demon's Souls uses a central hub system known as the "Nexus" where players can level up, repair equipment, or buy certain items, before venturing into one of the five connected worlds. The "World Tendency" feature is also exclusive toDemon's Souls, where the difficulty of exploring a world is dependent on how many bosses have been killed, and how the player dies. The gameplay involves a character-creation system and emphasizes gathering loot through combat with enemies in a non-linear series of varied locations. It had an online multiplayer system integrated into single-player, in which players could leave messages and warnings for other players' worlds, as well as join other players to assist and/or kill them. After FromSoft extended the server's lifecycle past the original 2011 shutdown date, the multiplayer component was finally taken offline in early 2018.[44]
TheKing's Field series, also developed by FromSoftware, is considered a spiritual predecessor to the series. It debuted in 1994 withKing's Field for thePlayStation and had three sequels.[5][38]
In February 2016,Bandai Namco Entertainment partnered with American retailerGameStop to releaseSlashy Souls, afree-to-play mobileendless runner, to promoteDark Souls III. The game was presented in apixel art style, and shares the series' level of difficulty.[45] The game was met with highly negative critical reception,[46] with reviewers such as Chris Carter ofDestructoid andJames Stephanie Sterling both giving the game a 1/10.[47][48]
| Game | Year | Metacritic |
|---|---|---|
Dark Souls | 2011 | PC: 85/100[49] PS3: 89/100[50] X360: 89/100[51] |
| Dark Souls II | 2014 | PC: 91/100[56] PS3: 91/100[57] X360: 91/100[58] |
| Dark Souls III | 2016 | 89/100[59] PS4: 89/100[60] XONE: 87/100[61] |
| Dark Souls: Remastered | 2018 | NS: 83/100[52] PC: 84/100[53] PS4: 84/100[54] XONE: 87/100[55] |
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TheDark Souls series has been met with critical acclaim, with the first game often being cited as among thegreatest video games of all time.[62][63][64][65]
The "bloodstain" gameplay mechanic has been given praise by critics. David Craddock ofShacknews called them one of the core tenets of the series.[66] He stated that the harshest punishment one can receive in a Souls game is "not dying once, but twice."[66]GamesRadar+ called bloodstains, in combination withDemon Souls's message system, "a graceful, elegant way of letting players guide each other without the need for words", and said that "rarely has the price of failure been balanced on such a precarious knife edge" as being forced to retrieve one's bloodstain.[67]
The bonfire concept was similarly praised. Matthew Elliott ofGamesRadar+ called bonfires a powerful symbol of relief, and "a meaty cocktail of progress, exhaustion and joy",[68] and that, while other games evoke emotions with their save points, no other game does so as effectively.[68]Vice called the Bonfire a "mark of genius" that "reinvented the save point" and allowed the player to reflect on their progress.[69]
As of 2024[update], theDark Souls series had shipped 37.33 million copies outside of Japan.[70]Dark Souls III broke sales records upon release, selling over three million copies worldwide by May 2016 and was Bandai Namco's fastest-selling game until being surpassed byElden Ring in 2022.[71][72]
TheSoulslike genre was inspired by common features of the series, resulting in many games using similar mechanics. Other FromSoftware games directed by Miyazaki, such asDemon's Souls,Bloodborne,[73][74]Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,[75] andElden Ring,[76] share many of the same concepts ofSouls and are often associated with the series and grouped under the "Soulsborne" label.[77][78][79][80]
The series has also been cited as an influence on severalPlayStation Network features, including asynchronous messaging, social networking, and video sharing,[81] as well as for the television showStranger Things.[82]
| Video games | |||||
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| Other | |||||
| Universe |
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| King's Field |
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|---|---|
| Armored Core | |
| Shadow Tower | |
| Echo Night | |
| EverGrace | |
| Lost Kingdoms | |
| Otogi | |
| Another Century's Episode | |
| Dark Souls | |
| Elden Ring | |
| Other games |
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| People | |
| Related | |
