Over the last decade, mainstream games have been going down the path of ever-increasing simplification and hand-holding. Objectives have become clearly demarcated, and death usually just means restarting from a checkpoint a few seconds back. If you keep pummelling your head against a tough point in a game for long enough, you'll break through eventually. Enter the Souls series, which made death something to fear - an event of agonising consequence that gave you a sinking feeling in your stomach. When you die in Dark Souls, all the precious souls (essentially currency and XP) you had on your person at the point of death stay where you died, which means you have to go back and collect them without dying on your way - otherwise they're gone forever. This makes you incredibly wary of making mistakes. You approach each enemy carefully rather than running into battle with your sword a-swinging, and you take a deep breath to psychologically prepare yourself before stepping through a fog gate with a boss waiting on the other side. In this game, death is the worst thing that can possibly happen to you, and it completely shapes your approach to the game. It'd be pushing it to say that Dark Souls' death mechanics mean that you approach the game world much like you'd approach it if it were a real place; if that was the case, I for one would probably just cower in some dark corner of the Undead Asylum, blubbering my eyes out until they dropped out of my skull when I inevitably turn hollow. But Dark Souls does a great job of infusing death with a feeling of foreboding not too dissimilar to how we regard it in real life.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
