Games of 2011: Dark Souls
A hazy myth, an elegant contraption, an eccentric vision, an unforgiving mistress: Dark Souls has many sides. All bear the fingerprints of creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, who in 2011 established himself as the most interesting designer working in blockbuster games today. Not that this, sequel to Sony-born Demon’s Souls, has much aside from giant sales figures to identify it as a big hitter. In all other ways it eschews the churning mainstream, taking design decisions that are both unfashionable and, prior to its chart-dominating success, seemingly commercially unworkable. Because it’s a game that obscures its precise systems with the fog of misdirection, whispering clues that lead nowhere, forcing you to feel out its systems and geography, absent of any handholding. For players used to explicit goals with well-furrowed roads to reach them, this feels like play with the stabilisers removed. Indeed, when it comes to your task and the route by which you arrive at it, Dark Souls has nothing to say. Its tutorials come as paper cut admonishments; training levels that suckerpunch you back to bonfire save points with nothing to show for your troubles but some muscle memory, a bruised ego and another plan that must be torn up and replaced with something better. Dark Souls has nothing to say to players who wish to succeed simply by showing up. Read more…
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