That region might contain dim forests, crumbling castles, dilapidated bridges, and ominous fortresses. Watching a giant closed gate swing open after a nail-biting battle is a fantastic reward for proving your dominance: You are filled with trepidation and excitement at the prospect of investigating a mystifying new territory. You can't explore with impunity, however: certain areas open up to you only when you beat bosses. You might expect that such thin storytelling might lead to aimlessness, but Dark Souls is anything but aimless, in part due to the structure and design of its large, seamless world.ĭemon's Souls was a collection of large levels attached to a hub area Dark Souls is a single, massive realm, separated into distinct regions. Rather, it provides you with a captivating world spiced with narrative details, and encourages you to craft your own tale. NPCs muse on their undead conditions and emit disturbing giggles, but Dark Souls doesn't focus on plot, character development, or questing in the traditional sense. And so begins your exploration of Lordran, where non-player characters offer a few vague notions of where you are and what you must do, but little else. After this sinister and enthralling introduction, a giant raven flies you to the shrine that serves as your initial hub. You fight a gargantuan ogre, get rolled over by a giant ball, and encounter a sad fellow who issues you a warning in his final moments. The tutorial introduces you to the impending terrors in fine fashion. You create a character, select a class, and enter a bleak kingdom populated by undead horrors, shrieking gargoyles, and iron-clad knights. Like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls is a third-person dungeon crawler with precise and responsive combat. It's a landmark game, destined to be loved and talked about by anyone who has the pleasure of unraveling its mysteries.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Dark Souls plays by its own rules, and in doing so, provides an unforgettable adventure that seeps into your being and invades your thoughts. But in Dark Souls, death and resurrection is a core mechanic, not a roadblock, and because the combat is so precise, you ultimately feel in control of your destiny. And so you die, over and over again, as you make your way through this strikingly fearsome land. Dark Souls' enormous world is vast and dangerous, filled with terrifying fire demons and homicidal lizardmen, all with a single goal: to annihilate you. It takes the concepts of deadly environments and unflinching difficulty introduced by 2009's infamously tough Demon's Souls and cranks up the challenge, the fear, the frustration, and the eventual triumph. It's a thoughtful, atmospheric, and mysterious role-playing adventure that challenges your mind and your mettle.

Dark souls 1 pc controls