4. Make The Game Worth Playing
What is the selling point of Dark Souls? I'll give you a hint; the game's tag line is "Prepare To Die". Dark Souls is a hard game - there is no question about it. No matter how far in the game you are, even the lowest-level monsters can kill you, if you aren't careful. Many would classify a game with this level of difficulty as being "punishing" or "unforgiving", but there is a reason as to why you don't see those words associated with Dark Souls. This is because, while Dark Souls is difficult, it is still fair, and it all comes back to those game rules we talked about before, and nobody is ever to blame for your failure than you, the player. Games today, unfortunately, do not allow for this kind of difficulty. One example is checkpoints: most games just start you back off where you died, but Dark Souls, on the other hand, has specific checkpoints throughout the game, called Bonfires, which can be used as a resting point. Every time you rest at one, it becomes your checkpoint and respawn point, and all minor monsters are resurrected. This implements the restarting systems that older games had (restarting from the beginning of the game) but does it in a way that's fair to the player. This makes triumphing over the enemies in your path that much more rewarding on a personal level, on a level that no digital reward could ever compete touch.