I’m perpetually exhausted by Dark Souls discourse, which is why I rarely write about FromSoftware anymore despite thinking Bloodborne is one of the most outstanding games ever made. From talks about difficulty options – which, for the record, should absolutely be implemented – to convoluted misreadings of lore, this is a series I’ve unfortunately learned to enjoy on my own, quietly and only every so often.
Still, when I saw the discourse erupt once again this week, I finally decided it was high time I weighed in. Not with some lukewarm take on how the difficulty defines the game or anything like that – I want to make a point about why the people who say, “Dark Souls being difficult is integral to the experience” are wrong.
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Put it this way: if Dark Souls had difficulty options, I’d still play on one of the harder ones because I enjoy it. That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? If you want to experience the same Dark Souls as always, you can still do that. Arguing about why others shouldn’t be able to participate in a slightly easier version is pretentious, gatekeep-y, and embarrassingly naive.
Want me to prove it? Okay. I already said Bloodborne was my favourite Souls game – it’s probably in my top ten games of all time, for what it’s worth. Do you think Bloodborne would be as good as it is if you didn’t meet Alfred before heading to Old Yharnam? What about Eileen the Crow, eh? Or Djura? Or Annalise? All of these characters contribute to why some of the game’s best locations are so enduringly special, but if you want to make Bloodborne emphatically harder for yourself, they cease to exist in about ten seconds flat. Even that weirdo into the Tomb of Oedon has at least something of value to add.
What made me think about all of this was a recent Dark Souls 2 run, where the challenge runner in question beat the entire game without talking to a single NPC. Impressive in some ways, sure, but it also relegates the game down to one of pure, empty precision. There’s so much more to FromSoftware games than rolls, parries, and visceral hits. There’s this amazing, cryptic wealth of lore to dive into. The art direction is stunning in equally beautiful and uncanny ways, whereas the music flits between largesse exhibitions of orchestral fear and softer, more sombre pieces. Each and every world from Demon’s Souls to Sekiro is textured by such careful and caring hands that they continue to supersede even themselves.
What I mean by that last part is that sure, difficulty influences replayability to an extent. The better you get, the more capable you are of beating that boss first try, right? But it’s also the world state – it’s catching minute details you might have missed the first time around and reconsidering ostensibly obvious ideas and concepts based on the subtleties imbued in them that only a trained and weathered eye can catch. I’ve beaten Bloodborne seven times – hell, I Platinumed it – but I guarantee if I went back for an eighth run I’d discover multiple things I had no idea existed before.
Challenge runs and speedruns are impressive – I’d know, I’ve interviewed multiple Souls experts over the years. They’re nothing like how any normal person plays a game, though, and to suggest that these games are difficult by design because that is how they’re supposed to be played is ludicrous. If someone can make Dark Souls 2 even harder and that’s alright with you, why do you have an issue with someone being given an easier time? Are you really that keen to relegate these fundamentally brilliant games to “git gud scrub”?
That’s before we get into the countless accessibility concerns that arise when games are made brutally hard with no alternative. Millions of people all over the world can’t play Bloodborne or Dark Souls for reasons that are completely out of their control – you’d deny them Elden Ring just so you can stay on your high horse and beat it after dying 80 times and planting your controller in the TV screen? Nice one, bud. Extremely reasonable. Very empathetic. The pinnacle of virtue in a post-chivalric society.
It’s one thing to argue for easier difficulties to be implemented in Souls games, but it’s another thing entirely to recognize that the uniform difficulty currently available in them actually adds… nothing. Sure, it might make you feel good when you roll credits, but you can just play on Hard – who cares if someone plays on Easy instead? Does it really mean that much to you? Are you truly, consciously that stubborn and unsympathetic to the needs of others? If so, go ahead – steamroll your way through the games without talking to NPCs or admiring the art. Turn down the music so all you can hear is boss grunts that serve as parry cues, ignore the item descriptions that add so much lore to this world, pay no attention to the notes left by millions of other players that contribute so much to the amazing community surrounding these games. I’ll be honest, though – to me, that sounds like no fun, and if you asked me, I’d say you were the one playing these games wrong.
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