Dark Souls

Gameplay centres on exploration, deliberate combat, character customisation, and online interactions including messages, cooperative play, and invasions. After its original release for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, a Windows port featuring additional content, titled the Prepare to Die Edition, was released in August 2012. That additional content was released separately for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions as the downloadable content pack Artorias of the Abyss in October 2012. A remastered version was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2018. Cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. Critics praised the depth of its combat, intricate level design, and use of flavour text, while responses to its high level of difficulty were divided. The original Windows version was less well received, with criticism directed at technical issues. Its success led to two sequels, Dark Souls II (2014) and Dark Souls III (2016).

Publication is recorded by Namco Bandai Games America Inc. And FromSoftware. The recorded date of publication is 2011. It belongs to the series Dark Souls. It is associated with Japan. Recorded genres are action role-playing game, adventure video game and soulslike.

• Title — Dark Souls • Developer — FromSoftware • Publisher — Namco Bandai GamesFromSoftware • Director — Hidetaka Miyazaki • Producer — * Hidetaka Miyazaki • Daisuke Uchiyama • Kei Hirono • Programmer — Jun Ito • Artist — Makoto Sato • Writer — Hidetaka Miyazaki • Composer — Motoi Sakuraba • Series — Dark Souls • Platforms — * PlayStation 3 • Xbox 360 • Windows • PlayStation 4 • Xbox One • Nintendo Switch • Genre — Action role-playing • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer

• Illustration — A boss fight from the game's Artorias of the Abyss expansion. Dark Souls is a third-person action role-playing game. The player explores Lordran, a single interconnected world divided into distinct regions and linked by unlockable shortcuts. Areas can often be approached through multiple routes, although some paths are locked until the player meets certain prerequisites. The game encourages cautious exploration, as progress often depends on learning enemy placement, attack patterns, and alternative routes through repeated attempts. Bonfires serve as checkpoints and sites for character management. Resting at a bonfire restores the player character's health and Estus Flask charges, and allows the player to level up, attune magic, and repair or upgrade equipment. Resting also respawns most enemies, excluding bosses, mini-bosses, and killed non-player characters. Combat involves melee and ranged weapons, defensive manoeuvres, and magic. The player can block, dodge roll, backstep, parry, or attack with weapons such as swords, spears, bows, and crossbows. Magic is divided into sorceries, miracles, and pyromancies. Unlike many role-playing games, spells are not cast from a mana pool; each attuned spell instead has a limited number of uses, which are restored when the player rests at a bonfire. Equipment and combat abilities can be altered through levelling, weapon upgrades, armour, and equipment choices. Defeating enemies grants souls, which function as both currency and experience points. When the player dies, the character returns to the last bonfire and drops any carried souls and humanity at the place of death. The player can recover them by reaching the resulting bloodstain, but loses them permanently after dying again before doing so.

Dark Souls integrates online features into the single-player world. The player can see ghostly images of other players, activate bloodstains that show how other players died, and leave messages using preset phrases. Direct multiplayer includes cooperative summoning and player-versus-player invasions. The humanity system controls access to some online features. Dying in human form returns the character to undead form. The player can restore human form at a bonfire by consuming humanity, allowing them to summon other players and certain non-player characters for assistance, but also exposing them to invasions. The game can still be completed in undead form. Covenants, optional factions encountered during the game, can affect multiplayer goals, rewards, and interactions. Some covenants encourage cooperative play, while others focus on invasions or other forms of player-versus-player interaction. In January 2022, online services for the Windows versions of the Dark Souls games were disabled after a security exploit was found. Online multiplayer for the original Windows Prepare to Die Edition was later permanently disabled, while online features for Dark Souls: Remastered on Windows were restored in November 2022.

Dark Souls is set in Lordran, a decaying kingdom near the end of the Age of Fire. In the opening cutscene, the world is first described as an unchanging Age of Ancients inhabited by Everlasting Dragons. The First Flame then appears, bringing disparity: heat and cold, life and death, and light and dark. Several beings find powerful souls within the flame, including Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight; the Witch of Izalith; Gravelord Nito, the first of the dead; and the Furtive Pygmy, who finds the Dark Soul. Gwyn, the Witch, Nito, and the scaleless dragon Seath overthrow the dragons, beginning the Age of Fire. As the First Flame fades, Gwyn sacrifices himself to preserve it. The game begins much later, when humans marked by the Darksign are cursed to resurrect after death and eventually lose their minds, becoming hollow.

The player character is a cursed undead imprisoned in the Northern Undead Asylum. They are freed by Oscar of Astora, a dying Undead Knight who tells them to make pilgrimage to Lordran and ring the Bell of Awakening. The player escapes the Asylum and is brought to Lordran by a giant crow. There, they discover that there are actually two Bells of Awakening: one in the Undead Parish up above, and one in Blighttown underground. Ringing the bells awakens the Primordial Serpent Kingseeker Frampt, who, if spoken to, instructs the player character to reach Anor Londo and obtain the Lordvessel. The player climbs through the trial of Sen’s Fortress and is taken by flying demons to Anor Londo. They make their way through the city and defeat Knight Ornstein and Executioner Smough. Afterwards, they meet Princess Gwynevere, the daughter of Gwyn. Gwynevere instructs them to succeed Gwyn by collecting the four Lord Souls needed to rekindle the First Flame: Seath’s Soul, in the Duke’s Archives above Anorlondo; the Witch’s Soul, found in Lost Izalith, even deeper than Blighttown; Nito’s Soul, found in the Tomb of Giants beyond the Catacombs; and the Soul of the Four Kings, found in the ruins of the city of New Londo. The player character can also encounter another Serpent, Darkstalker Kaathe, if they defeat the Four Kings without speaking to Frampt. Kaathe urges them to let the flame die out and bring about the Age of Dark. After collecting the Lord Souls, the player character enters the Kiln of the First Flame and defeats Gwyn, who has lost his mind after sacrificing himself to preserve the Flame. The Player then either links the flame, preserving the Age of Fire, or leaves it to fade, beginning the Age of Dark.

In the Artorias of the Abyss expansion, the player character is drawn into the past to the ruined land of Oolacile. There, they attempt to rescue Princess Dusk of Oolacile and investigate the fate of Knight Artorias, who had sought to confront the Abyss. The player character finds Artorias corrupted after being defeated by Manus, Father of the Abyss. After defeating Artorias and Manus, the player character rescues Dusk, while present-day legends continue to credit Artorias with stopping the Abyss.

• Illustration — Hidetaka Miyazaki, the game's director and producer Dark Souls was developed by FromSoftware and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who also served as one of its producers. The game followed FromSoftware's 2009 action role-playing game Demon's Souls. Before release, Miyazaki said that Dark Souls was not a sequel to Demon's Souls, but a new game with similar concepts made by the same director and producers. Namco Bandai producers Daisuke Uchiyama and Kei Hirono similarly described it as a spiritual successor rather than a direct sequel, while noting that it shared much of the same development team and gameplay concept. Namco Bandai Games handled international publishing, while FromSoftware published the game in Japan. Miyazaki said that the team intended to retain and increase the challenge associated with Demon's Souls, but not simply by making the game harder. Instead, the goal was to give players freedom to experiment with strategies and feel rewarded for overcoming obstacles. He described bonfires, referred to before release as "Beacon Fires", as recovery and respawn points that also served as rare places of warmth in the game's dark fantasy world. The game's art direction was developed through a mixture of broad prompts and direct oversight. Miyazaki said that, during the early concept stage, he gave artists simple "image words" and allowed them to produce designs freely, after which he selected, revised, or incorporated their ideas. When designs had a more specific gameplay or worldbuilding function, he gave more detailed instructions about their use and placement. Miyazaki said he worked directly with each designer rather than assigning a single intermediary to manage the visual direction. Miyazaki described the game's visual design as organised around several broad themes: gods and knights centred on Anor Londo, chaos and demons centred on Lost Izalith, death and decay centred on Gravelord Nito, and the ancient dragons. He also said he sought "refinement and elegance" in the game's designs, even in grotesque or decayed areas. Some locations drew on real-world architecture; a designer cited Milan Cathedral as a reference for Anor Londo's buttresses, while Miyazaki said that New Londo Ruins was based partly on Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. Miyazaki later said that the manga series Berserk had influenced Dark Souls, although he said gameplay remained his first priority during the design process.

Dark Souls was first released for PlayStation 3 in Japan in September 2011, followed by releases for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Western regions the following month. After the console release, fans campaigned for a Windows version. In April 2012, Namco Bandai Games confirmed Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for Windows; Game Informer reported that an online petition with almost 100,000 signatures had played a major role in the decision to port the game. Producer Daisuke Uchiyama said that FromSoftware had not originally planned a Windows version and had limited experience porting games to PC, resulting in a version that was closer to a console port than a PC-specific conversion. In August 2012, the Windows version was released and included new areas, bosses, enemies, non-player characters, equipment, and an online player-versus-player matchmaking system. The additional content was later released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions as the downloadable content pack Artorias of the Abyss. The announcement that the Windows version would use Games for Windows – Live for online play and digital rights management prompted criticism from some players, including a petition asking Namco Bandai to use Steamworks instead. After the Windows release, a user-created mod named DSFix was released to address the port's fixed internal rendering resolution. In December 2014, an update allowed players to migrate the Steam version from Games for Windows – Live to Steamworks while retaining save data and achievements; Steamworks became the default version in February 2015. In April 2016, Dark Souls became available on Xbox One through backward compatibility. Dark Souls: RemasteredA remastered version, titled Dark Souls: Remastered, was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on May 25, 2018, and for Nintendo Switch on October 19, 2018. It includes the base game and Artorias of the Abyss. The remaster added technical and multiplayer changes, including higher resolution options, a 60 frames-per-second target on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, dedicated servers, and support for up to six online players; the Switch version runs at 30 frames per second.

Dark Souls received positive reviews from critics upon its release. One of the reviewers for Dark Souls described it as "a very hardcore dark-fantasy [role-playing game]" that is "role-playing right down to the roots", and stated that the "massive field map and powerful enemies serve to rev up both your sense of adventure and your sense of dread." Another reviewer said that "the sheer happiness you get after the trial-and-error pays off and you overcome the challenge is absolutely impossible to replicate." GameSpot praised the online system and the sense of jubilation when conquering boss fights after numerous failed attempts. They also suggested that casual gamers may struggle to progress, whereas role-playing game enthusiasts will thrive on the difficulty. IGN complimented the level design, variety, strong emphasis on online features, excessively dark tone and atmosphere, and deep gameplay. While praising the extreme difficulty, they stated that "there's a difference between punishing, and downright unfair." Eurogamer also applauded the level design and atmosphere while noting that the game's difficulty might not appeal to casual gamers. Edge retroactively awarded the game 10 out of 10 in their October 2013 20th anniversary issue, stating that the breadth and quality of the game's design had overruled complaints about its difficulty. Game Informer Phil Kollar opined that "the frustration in Dark Souls arises from how [late '00s and early 2010s] games have conditioned us. Gamers are used to handholding tutorials that walk you through every aspect of a game’s mechanics." While complimenting the game's notoriously steep difficulty curve, Kollar was less favourable toward its "overall lack of direction". In a review of Dark Souls in Black Gate, Connor Gormley said "I can't help but smile at all the things I've done in this game, from the serious and atmospheric, to the actually kind of stupid, like losing a fist fight with a giant mushroom man who I like to imagine has a thick cockney accent. I've given very few examples of the game's lore by design, because half of the fun is finding that out for yourself, at least if you're in it for the fantasy. It's an experience, one fueled by creativity and ingenuity, and it's one that I urge you to go out and at least try, regular gamer or not." Namco Bandai's yearly financial report stated that the game sold 1.19 million units in the United States and Europe by March 2012. FromSoftware announced in April 2013 that the game had sold 2.37 million units worldwide. Game writer Erik Wolpaw, an early proponent of the Souls series going back to 2009's Demon's Souls, said the game was his favourite of 2011.

Dark Souls is associated with Japan. Recorded as published in 2011.