20 Best Video Game Opening Levels Of The Last 10 Years

9. Escaping The Asylum - Dark Souls

Few games are so masterful at teaching you the ropes by attempting to strangle you with them first. Souls' opening stretch is literally the game placing you in a locked cell, opening the door and motioning to proceed.

You figure out how to fight, dodge, block incoming damage all with minimal, entirely optional tutorial messages. It feels like you're carving a genuine path through this established world of threats and horror, eventually coming across the Asylum Demon; a hulking mutated testicle of a boss that'll almost definitely kill every new player.

Or at least, he will, unless you keep your wits about you and know when to retreat. The trick is not to fight, finding an escape route (and the first save point), as only after you've acquired a far more capable weapon can you fell the beast. It's the entire game's progression and ethos wrapped into a half-hour stint; one that separates the gamers from the casuals (in a nice way), and sets up Dark Souls as one of the most rewarding video games of all time.