Dark Souls
A notoriously difficult action RPG from FromSoftware.
Where Dark Souls comes up1 episode or test
Dark Souls is hard on purpose, using difficulty to create fear and then triumph, and it ships with no easy mode. After 2017 many games copied its souls, bonfires and estus flasks and felt samey. The sources give no sales or player figures. The lesson: copy the intent behind a design, not its surface mechanics, and treat genres as loose terms rather than checklists.
- No easy mode
- Difficulty designed for fear, then triumph
- Deliberate challenge design choice
- Assist Mode built in
- Explains how the game is meant to be played
- Says who the mode is for
- Player turns it on afterward
Brown: easy modes needn't threaten the intended experience if players are steered well
From Mark Brown's design analysis
What was said about Dark Souls
Dark Souls is hard on purpose and offers no easy mode. Its difficulty is designed to produce fear and then triumph. It has no easy mode, which is a deliberate challenge design choice.
Mark Brown contrasts it with Celeste, whose Assist Mode explains how the game is meant to be played and who the mode is for before the player turns it on. His view is that easy modes need not threaten the intended experience if players are steered well.
Copying Dark Souls' parts produced a wave of samey clones. After 2017 many games copied its souls, bonfires and estus flasks, often with renamed versions, and felt samey.
Brown's lesson is that defining a genre as a checklist of one game's features leads to copies. He says "designers should think of genres in the loosest possible terms," adding and removing features and mixing genres to feel fresh.
10 Game Design Lessons from 10 Years of GMTK
It is hard on purpose, to produce fear and then triumph. After 2017 many games copied its souls, bonfires and estus flasks, and felt samey.
Dark Souls is hard on purpose and offers no easy mode. Its difficulty is designed to produce fear and then triumph. It has no easy mode, which is a deliberate challenge design choice.
Mark Brown contrasts it with Celeste, whose Assist Mode explains how the game is meant to be played and who the mode is for before the player turns it on. His view is that easy modes need not threaten the intended experience if players are steered well.
Copying Dark Souls' parts produced a wave of samey clones. After 2017 many games copied its souls, bonfires and estus flasks, often with renamed versions, and felt samey.
Brown's lesson is that defining a genre as a checklist of one game's features leads to copies. He says "designers should think of genres in the loosest possible terms," adding and removing features and mixing genres to feel fresh.
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