10 Ways Dark Souls Made All Video Games WORSE

Dark Souls wasn’t the first game to introduce a stamina meter, but you’d likely struggle to find a game that uses them with such prevalence. If memes and difficulty were the first thing you think about when you think of a Souls game, the chances are, stamina maintenance is likely to be the second.

Yet, they’re demonised in many ways, and for good reason - in a game like Dark Souls, they work as a way to increase the already-high pressure, but their inclusion elsewhere is often largely arbitrary (have you ever played a game with a huge open world and yet, you can only sprint for ten seconds before you have to watch a little bar charge up again?)

With an ever-increasing focus on stamina management (often without a bespoke place in the grander design), stamina meters have popped up all over the place - likely as a result of the popularity of our favourite piece of sun-praising media.

Why does Adam run out of stealth punches in Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Why do Final Fantasy 15 boy band superheroes run out of energy when running through the wilderness? I can understand when it literally limits character progression (such as Breath of the Wild) - that serves a design purpose.

But when a stamina bar/limitation exists simply to inconvenience the player... maybe just... don’t?