Vanquishing the Depression Demon.
An examination of Dark Souls, depression, and difficulty.
I feel like a lot has been said of Dark Souls at this point that I struggle to say anything about it that hasn't already been talked to death about. Dark Souls turns 13 this year, which is staggering to me because I remember where I was at in my life in 2011, I remember renting it multiple times, I remember finally buying it, and I remember virtually every inch of the game from front to back. Dark Souls has embedded itself into my skull, as it has into many others. Dark Souls has existed for more than a third of my life and that ages me greatly. It's a storied series at this point, with modest beginnings at the obtuse Demon's Souls, all the way up to Elden Ring, heralded as one of the finest games this generation. From difficulty memes about the Dark Souls of etcetera to spawning a generation of Youtube lore peddlers, its impact on the gaming industry as a whole in the past decade is undeniable. Really, what more could I say about this series that hasn't been said at this point?
But here I am, throwing my take into proverbial bonfire.
Dark Souls is beautiful. The game was excellent at roleplaying and letting you be what kind of character you wanted to be. What abilities you wanted to use, whether you wanted to be a sword-and-board knight, a rambunctious bandit, a nimble thief, a righteous paladin, a flame-wielding pyromancer, or a traditional big-hat wizard slinging spells. There were a variety of ways to explore the world and and adapt to the methods of combat. Whereas I feel a series like Zelda never really matured in its combat, Dark Souls was the experience that I always yearned for in Zelda but really only got in the NES games. Somewhere around Ocarina of Time onwards, Zelda sort of stagnated with its combat and difficulty. While all stunning games in their own right, the combat and enemy design in Zelda always felt auxiliary at best, never the star of the show. Which—for a game with a lot of fighting and killing—began to run itself a bit stale with me. It wasn't until Skyward Sword that the combat actually felt like it mattered, but that came with a whole slew of motion-controlled baggage that people have mixed feelings about. Same with BotW and its weapon durability and sheikah slate powers, but this isn't really about Zelda. Most people wouldn't even want to compare them even though they're both exploration-driven action adventure games. If anything, Dark Souls is more akin to a Metroidvania, what with the giant interconnected world and RPG leveling mechanics. Before “Souls-like” was a genre, people desperately wanted to find ways to connect what Dark Souls actually was, so Metroidvania and Zelda and Skyrim comparisons were rampant. But for me, my only frame of reference was Zelda at the time. This is my way of pussy-footing around using the infamous D-word. The word that's the equivalent of chumming the waters for chuds or dissenters.
The Zelda games were never difficult.
The moment-to-moment gameplay of Zelda never felt like it had stakes, I never felt like I was in danger. As a 20-something #GAMER I had a chip on my shoulder and I craved blood. When I started playing Dark Souls, I got blood. Dark Souls made me anxious. It made me paranoid around every corner because a false move meant death. Even nowadays the games are remarkably punishing. Every Dark Souls player can regale you a tale of the time they lost several levels worth of souls due to a careless error. They can tell you about how insanely hard these games are. How these are for hardcore crowds, and they'll gatekeep the shit out of casual players. There are no difficulty settings, they're for pussies and you need to play the intended experience of the developer's vision to taste that sweet succulent meat of triumph when you finally overcome that at-the-time insurmountable challenge or boss fight.
But what if I told you these people are full of shit? Dark Souls has always been an inclusive experience, and it took me getting my ass pounded at Ornstein and Smough several times to understand that. Dark Souls is challenging. It's punishing. But it's not an exclusive clubhouse for big boi gamers. Playing it won't make your dick bigger (or clit, we're inclusive here). And yes, there are ways to alleviate difficulty.
When I was playing Dark Souls, I was depressed. I mean I always am, but I was especially depressed when Dark Souls came out. And I found solace in the game for that. It was a dark, lonely, oppressive experience that I felt at home in. I was left to my own devices to uncover secrets. I did not have XBL on my Xbox 360 at first, so I was well and truly alone. I never beat the game while I rented it, some challenges just felt impossible to take on and I wasn't entirely used to how the game played. Dark Souls wasn't inherently hard, it just had a bunch of people going from Skyrim to another ARPG and misunderstanding the rules of the game. Dark Souls has its own brand of rules it expects you to follow. And if you don't follow them, you'll be punished. But once you get into the swing of its oppressive world and atmosphere, you start feeling at home. It gets easier, dare I say. It speaks a language of action RPGs that people at the time weren't fluent in, so it was like trying to understand calculus for the average player, and I am bad at math. And while I could go online for guides and tips and tricks on how to beat certain bosses, it did not compensate for the obvious skill gap I had. I am not good at these games nor will I claim to be. I yearned for there to be a difficulty setting in the game. I was just not good enough at these games and it was depressing. And when I'm depressed, I avoided the hardest thing to do when you're depressed for the longest time. Eventually I caved, but could it really be called “caving”? So what did I do?
I asked for help.
And surprisingly enough, after I got XBL there were no shortages of people who just... wanted to help. I found helpful messages on the ground warning me of ambushes or telling me to jump. The messages told me secrets that I would otherwise never discover on my own. But most importantly, Ornstein and Smough were no longer stonewalling me because I could summon other players for it. There were queues of people lined up ready and willing to help me with that boss. So many hardcore idiots playing this series tout that they could get through it alone, and yet why would that be a triumph when the entire ecosystem of the game tells you the opposite? Dark Souls speaks a different language than other action RPGs, and in its language making the game easier isn't a slider, it's asking others for help. Dark Souls isn't a game designed to be a solitary experience; people with diverse intentions come and go. You might summon people for help, or you might be the person offering help to others. You might be an asshole invader, or you might be the hero protecting the weak from them. It's such a cool dynamic, and far more interesting than a knob you can turn in the menu to adjust the game's challenge.
Dark Souls taught me that life can be horribly oppressive and unyielding, but eventually I persevered and I beat the game on my own terms. I wouldn't call myself good, but I've gotten up to NG+7. I've done a SL1 run which was like pulling teeth. But even then, instead of wishing for it to be easier, is that it was okay to just ask for help. During a year of my life where everything began giving out and I started to drown in school and tense family issues, it was a sobering lesson to take from a fucking video game. Dark Souls just didn't make me a better video game player, it honestly made me a better person. And frankly, I look for every opportunity to team up with other people to play games. Being a solitary wolf is overrated, I'm on the jolly cooperation bus now.
