Dark Souls is FromSoftware’s best creation. This trilogy of Dark Fantasy games is responsible for inventing the Soulsborne and Soulslike genre which led to the creation of other great games. These soul-like games are known for their challenging combat and boss fights as well as having limited healing options. These games are also identified by their dark and grim world and atmosphere. This article will go over how Dark Souls games evolved with Dark Souls 3 perfecting the Souls formula.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls is one of the most iconic games in the gaming world and was released on September 22, 2011. Unlike its predecessor Demon Souls, this game was successful in gaining the interest of the gaming community worldwide and was able to create its cult following.
World Design
Soulslike games are known for their world design and the world of Dark Souls is extremely well done. All the places in the game are interconnected well and the feeling of exploration and finding hidden paths back to the explored path is unmatched. This game however suffers from the lack of fast travel options and a lot of player’s time is spent running from one spot to another. This slowly becomes tedious after a while combined with the fact that the design of the later half of the game is not as well done.
Combat
The combat and gameplay of Dark Souls was unique at the time. It was extremely challenging thanks to the limited healing and how punishing each enemy was. However, according to today’s standards, it is just slow and has not aged quite well. This game also lacks in terms of weapon designs and options. There is also no feature like power stancing or Ashes of War.
Boss Design
Boss Design of the original game was unique at the time, however like combat, it has not aged well. Most of the bosses in the game have a slow moveset and lack variety in their attacks. The bosses were amazing for the time and they paved the way for creating some of the best bosses in later FromSoftware games.
Quality of Life
Dark Souls lacked accessibility as it was one of the first games belonging to the Souls genre. The lack of fast travel options, slow movement, and dodges made the game feel slow and tedious. Quality-of-life features were then implemented in the later games after receiving feedback from this game.
Dark Souls 2
Dark Souls 2 was released on March 11, 2024, and is one of the most controversial games in the series. It launched with the greatest number of bosses and a lot of features. FromSoftware experimented with a lot of changes to the Souls formula in this game and not all changes were necessarily good.
World Design
The world design of Dark Souls 2 features a lot of freedom and exploration for the players. It features a ton of mysterious areas that keep players wanting more. There are a ton of areas which provided are not as interconnected as the original Dark Souls are still a delight to explore.
Combat
Dark Souls 2 greatly improved the combat system with the addition of a wide variety of weapon options. It also included the option of power stancing which allows players to dual wield two weapons belonging to the same archetype. It improved on everything that the original game featured. It also added a variety of other consumables like Healing Gems
Boss Design
The boss design of Dark Souls 2 is not quite different from Dark Souls as those bosses still feel slow and lack variety in their moveset. However, there is a factor that makes the bosses in the game infuriating and that is the runbacks to the boss fights. The runbacks to some of the bosses are extremely tedious thanks to how far the player respawns and the number of enemies that are present between the encounter and the spawn area.
Features
Dark Souls 2 experimented with a lot of features and added a lot of quality-of-life updates. Availability of fast travel options, new build crafting options thanks to power stancing, and Adaptability stat are the prominent example. Adaptability stat improved the dodge of players and was extremely unpopular among players and thankfully has never returned.
Dark Souls 3
The finale of the Souls trilogy, Dark Souls 3 was released on March 24, 2016, and it was an extreme success. It took whatever made Dark Souls 1 and 2 great and included it in the game. It featured some of the best bosses that FromSoftware has ever created, improved on combat a lot as well as introduced a lot of quality-of-life updates.
World Design
The world design of the first half of the game is a bit lackluster. However, the second half of the game and the DLC have some amazing world design. The areas are immersive, exploration is rewarding, and has one of the best atmospheres in all of the Souls trilogy.
Combat
Dark Souls 3 improved on the combat, the dodge and movement of the player and enemy combatants feel fluid. It also included the addition of Ashes of War making every weapon feel unique as well as allowing players to do crazy movements. It doubled down on the build crafting options which would later be implemented in Elden Ring, making it one of the best games of the genre.
Boss Design
Dark Souls 3 has some of the best bosses of all time. The endgame bosses are perfectly challenging as well as provide a feeling of satisfaction upon defeating them. Bosses’ runbacks are also perfectly fine. The move sets of bosses also feel very fluid and have a lot of variety in their attacks. Bosses like Lothric and Lorian, Nameless King, Sister Friede, Midir, Slave Knight Gael, and Soul of Cinder to this day remain some of the bosses in all of gaming.
Features
Dark Souls 3 took everything that made all the previous games fun and combined them to perfect the Souls formula. Fast travel was more easily accessible. Runbacks were not infuriating. The biggest change however was allowing players to drink Estus Flask while moving. It greatly improved the pace of the boss fight whereas in the previous games, boss fights could feel a little slow at times.
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