Dark Souls: An Overview
Hideki Miyazaki's "soulsborne franchise" is to this day one of the most masterful work of arts in the gaming industry which has had a profound impact on the landscape and quality of what makes a game "difficult" and "rich". Miyazaki (through FromSoftware) was able to craft together a storyline that is not only engaging from a storyline point of view but also from a scholarly perspective. Starting in 2009 with FromSoftware's release of Demon Souls the series debuted with rave reviews. It inspired a whole genre of games dubbed 'soulsborne' featuring intricate combat mechanics and difficulty.
After the creation of Demon Souls came a separate series - The Dark Souls Trilogy. Dark Souls (2011), Dark Souls II (2014) and Dark Souls III (2016) were for the most part praised for their ingenuity in level design and storytelling. On a base level, it plunges you into a fleeting, rotting world where your decisions have the chance to affect a millennia of generations. It’s a story of fate, temptation, preservation and earthly connection. As this exhibit explores the depths of the series (mainly focusing on I and III) some questions to consider are…
1) What have been the influences of Dark Souls?
2) How does Dark Souls being a videogame contribute to its ability to communicate its themes and express ecohorror?
3) Look at the pictures throughout the exhibit. What does the color palette tell you about the environment?
4) How effective is Dark Souls in contributing to environmental activism?
Read on, stay safe, and don't you dare go hollow!
This page has paths:
- Introduction Aman Patel
Contents of this path:
- The Age of Ancients and the Cycle of the Flame
- The World at a Crossworlds: Decay and Disaster
- The Inevitable Flame: Dark Souls Climate Change Analysis Part I
- The End of the World: Dark Souls Climate Change Analysis Part II
- Hope Within Despair: Dark Souls Climate Change Analysis Part III
- Media at a Crossroads: Interartifact Analysis
