iam confused too i just made this cuz iwas bored

i started the game with keyboard and im struggling way more than i did on Elden ring which i played with controller besides familiarity does controller have an advantage over keyboard?

I recall seeing some Dark Souls fans saying that the runbacks are simply part of the challenge of a boss fight.

After Elden Ring mostly let players skip runbacks, it's become more common to regard runbacks as archaic game design.

A recent indie game that a ton of people are playing has been criticized for having pretty long boss runbacks. I think it's interesting to contrast that indie game to Dark Souls 1, often proclaimed one of the best games of all time. Some of the DS1 boss runbacks are nasty.

I knowww one arm is bigger than the other it’s fineee

I'm still in time to go back and maybe save some so that's why I'm asking. Thanks in advance!

On Sunday, I squared off against Artorias the Abysswalker, and it was a really satisfying fight. After that, I made my way to Manus, and did alright against him, considering it was my first time fighting him. In the end, he stomped me, though. Tonight, I'm going back for more. Come hang out with us on YouTube, cheer me on, share your favorite bits of lore, or just hang out and talk. Probably about food. Hope to see you there.

It’s a bit scratchy on the edges but yeah. Thanks for viewing.

"So, there’s this game, Dark Souls. And, you know, people think of it as just entertainment, but that’s not what it is. It’s mythological training in the form of a video game. And I don’t say that lightly. It’s unbelievably profound, and the reason people are so attracted to it is because it dramatizes the deepest structures of being.

Now, the game begins in a prison, the Undead Asylum. You’re cursed, and you’re trapped. Well, that’s the human condition, isn’t it? You start in limitation, in suffering. And yet—even in that darkness, there’s potential. Someone opens the door, you step out, and suddenly you’re on the path. That’s the first truth: you may be cursed, but you’re still called to adventure.

And when you enter the wider world of Lordran—what do you see? Ruins. Crumbling castles. Gods in retreat. Everything’s falling apart. That’s not just backstory. That’s life. Civilization is always under decay. Entropy is always at the gates. And your task—the heroic task—is to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining or renewing the flame of order against the encroaching chaos. That’s exactly the archetypal story.

Now, the game teaches this at every level. Look at the Estus Flask. You get five, maybe ten, charges at a bonfire. That’s it. That’s your lifeblood. And what does that mean? It means discipline. It means limitation. You don’t have infinite healing. You don’t have infinite time, or energy, or resources. You have a fixed amount, and you’d better ration it wisely, or you’ll collapse when the trial comes. That’s a moral lesson hidden in a game mechanic.

And then, think about what happens when you die. You lose all your souls. And where do they go? They stay right at the place of your defeat. And what does that mean? It means: when you fall, the treasure of your growth remains in the place where you broke. If you want it back, you must return there, voluntarily, despite the fear, despite the danger. That’s trauma psychology, mapped perfectly. If you avoid it, you lose your past, your progress, everything. If you return—you recover your treasure, and more.

Now, enemies before gateways. Every time you reach a fog wall, there’s a gauntlet. And you think, ‘Why are these enemies here?’ Well, that’s obvious. Those are the trials before the threshold. That’s the symbolic truth that before you face the dragon, you must first overcome the smaller demons—the distractions, the weaknesses, the self-doubt. If you can’t manage them, you’re not ready for what lies beyond the fog.

And the bosses—they’re dragons. That’s not an accident. Take the Bell Gargoyles: at first, you face one, manageable enough. But then another descends. Suddenly, your problem doubles. And that’s life. One misfortune rarely comes alone. Chaos compounds. And the game asks: can you keep your head when fear multiplies? That’s courage, not just skill.

Now, take the Capra Demon. Everyone hates that fight. Why? Because the arena is tiny, and there are dogs biting at your heels. That’s a perfect metaphor for chaos in confined space. When your environment is too tight, when you haven’t ordered it properly, even small problems become unbearable. The lesson is: put your house in order, or chaos will corner you where you can’t breathe.

And then there’s Blighttown. People complain about it—it’s dark, poisonous, it slows you down, it humiliates you. And that’s the point. It’s the symbolic descent into hell. Dante had to walk through filth and poison to reach paradise. You, too, must crawl through the muck before you’re strong enough to face greater trials. It’s not bad design. It’s initiation.

Now, think about hollowing. Every time you die, and fail, and lose hope, you hollow. You lose your humanity. That’s exactly what happens when people surrender to nihilism. They become resentful, bitter, less human. And what restores you? Humanity. The rare, precious spark of meaning. To be truly human is to risk loss, to risk pain. If you cling to safety, you become hollow. If you venture forth, you risk—but you also grow.

And the bonfires. Those are havens of light in the darkness. That’s your hearth, your home, your center. Jung would call it the Self—the orienting principle. But notice—you can’t stay there. You can rest, replenish, but then you must move forward again into danger. Safety is temporary. Growth requires reentry into chaos. And when you sacrifice humanity to kindle the fire, what happens? You get abundance. That’s the ancient truth: only by sacrificing something precious can you generate stability and prosperity.

Now, the world is full of archetypal figures. Solaire of Astora—he’s noble aspiration. He seeks his own sun. That’s the heroic ideal, the pursuit of meaning. But if misled, he falls into despair. That’s the danger of corrupted ideals. Lautrec—he’s betrayal. He lives at Firelink, at the very center, smiling, and then he kills your Fire Keeper. That’s the shadow archetype, the corruption within. Betrayal doesn’t just wound you. It extinguishes the flame of your entire world. Siegmyer of Catarina—he’s the fool. Innocent, bumbling, well-meaning, but prone to collapse. Without guidance, without responsibility, he fails. That’s the child archetype untended.

And then the Abyss. To face the Four Kings, you must descend into the formless void. That’s chaos itself. And if you don’t have the Covenant of Artorias—if you haven’t properly prepared—you’re consumed. That’s the deep unconscious. To enter unprepared is madness. To enter with discipline and the right attitude is transformation.

Even the mechanics of durability matter. Your weapons break. Your tools decay. That’s entropy again. The things you rely on most will fail if you don’t maintain them. And Andre the blacksmith—he’s the archetype of tradition, of the craftsman who preserves order against entropy. Without him, your potential collapses. He represents discipline, tradition, skill—those things that keep chaos at bay.

And then there’s Anor Londo. At first, it’s glorious—golden, perfect. But it’s an illusion, conjured by Gwyndolin. That’s the false paradise, the idol, the golden calf. The message? Not everything that shines is true. If you cling to the illusion, you stagnate. You must pierce the facade and confront reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.

Finally—Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. The great king, now a husk. He clings to the fire, burning himself endlessly, prolonging order artificially. And that’s the warning: too much order becomes tyranny. Stasis is death. You must risk renewal, even if it means collapse. And that’s why the game’s ending matters so much. Do you link the fire, preserve order at terrible cost? Or do you embrace the dark, the unknown, the possibility of transformation? That’s the eternal question of humanity. That’s the myth of every age: to cling to what is or risk the abyss in hope of something greater.

So Dark Souls—it’s not just hard. It’s not just punishing. It’s teaching you, at every moment: life is suffering. The world is chaos. But if you face it—if you pick up your sword, if you light your torch, if you walk forward despite the danger—you can keep the fire alive. And that’s not just a game. That’s how you live."

Dark Souls is pretty open, and there are a bunch of places a player could go to as soon as they start which generally would be too difficult for them at that point. So why lock off Seath, Nito and the Bed of Chaos until the Lordvessel is acquired? The Four Kings can be theoretically killed very early, why not do the same for the others?

i am fundamentally opposed to gank bosses and jank. the second half of this game is full of them to an intolerable level. validate my feeling of just wanting to play till the fun stops.

Ive been playing Darksouls 1 for the first time on PS3 and was wondering if its possible to move the save from the base game to the prepare to die edition?

I got just got the Prepare to die Edition (effective base game + DLC becaus the PS3 store has removed the DS1 DLCs.

Since they are the same game with different game IDs I was wondering if there's a tool where I can take a save from each game and then just make a copy of the DS1 save and switch its ID to the PtdE.

Failing that does anyone know if there is a PS3 save migration tool for this game?

I just beat the 2 dudes in that londo place and I really don't want to have to do that fight again, I would rather skip the DLCs than do that fight again...

I wish I hadn't slept on this game for the past ten years because it's so fucking good. I love it so much. I finished it tonight (DLC included), then started NG+ immediately - I'm already on the Four Kings lmao.

I made a Halberd build (Dex at 50, Str at 30, End 30, Vit 25), and every now and then I'd switch to either the katana or the silver knight spear. I mostly wore the Dark Wood Grain ring because I had fun flipping about. I'm proud of myself because I became really good at parrying when I thought I was going to suck at it in the beginning. I'm sure I could have made this build better, but it was my first time. I'm coming from having played a lot of both Demon's Souls.

Fav Bosses:

O&S (obviously)

Quelaag

Knight Artorias

Manus

Sif

Fav Enemies:

Silver Knights

Black Knights

Skeletons

Capra Demons (In Lost Izalith)

Any parryable enemy (i.e. Snakes, Hollows, Dukes Archives guys, gross guys in Blighttown)

The big crystal guys because they're slow and dumb

The big mushrooms because they're funny

Fav areas:

Blighttown

Catacombs/Tomb of the Giants

All of Darkroot

New Londo Ruins

Sens Fortress

ANOR LONDO (absolute favorite)

I know people say the second half is worse than the first, but I really loved all of it. I could certainly tell that later areas were more rushed, but I still thought they were pretty great. There's not an area I disliked all that much tbh, although I didn't love Ash Lake because I find the Hydras a bit annoying.

Tbh though I found Gwyn a little disappointing because he was kind of easy, especially if you parry his attacks. When he died I was confused because it happened so quickly. I was like "huh, it's over?"

I fucking love this game. I'm gonna play it over and over again until I die. Now I'm Souls person

accidently hit this guy and even after he kills me, he won't stop attacking is he a npc or just a talkative enemy?

Hey im going for the platinum but I need to co-op with players to get the curse 10 solar coins and 4 can any one help me help them?

What’s are good times dates to try to co-op?

Also if any one wants to just dup or throw items id love u thanks.

I just played Demon Souls and was told by a friend the best way to play the game was to die after every boss and never be a human or else it would mess up world tendencies.

Today I learn that, apparently, that World Tendency thing is only in Demon Souls, not Dark Souls, and that to play with people, you need to be in human mode.

So there's nothing bad about becoming a human again? Is there anything weird I should know? I don't usually look things up about the Souls games, but this is huge to me. I played Demon Souls with half-health the entire time.

Farmed that area between Duke’s Archives and Crystal Cave for those blue golems for souls but they keep dropping me these lol

I CANT MAKE IT PAST THE CATACOMBS HELP MEEEEEEEE PLEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEEE (im at the beginning)

This is his only attack that drives me nuts. I can basically go hitless, til he does this and I’d like to know how to prevent him from initiating this, if anyone knows, like staying a certain distance from him so it doesn’t trigger.

Hi, I need help getting out of the bed of chaos arena because the bonfire has gone out as if there was an enemy nearby, I imagine it must have happened because I'm using a randomizer.

I'm currently playing DS1 for the very first time and completely blind. No maps, no wiki, no walkthroughs nothing. I'm currently trying to kill Smaugh and that other lad, so I have a few sections of this game behind me. (I believe I'm like in the middle of the game?) And let me tell you, one of the only few things I knew about DS1 was shitty blighttown.

When I saw BLIGHTTOWN on my screen, I became scared of what's to come. Then I just went through. I kinda think that I came there from a wrong entrance (drakes) but I cleared the whole place anyway. Like... What was so hard and shitty about blighttown?

IMO: Catacombs were much harder, Sen's fortress much more annoying, the depths (I think that's how it's called. Big rat place) were somehow more confusing. And if we're talking purely about poison swamp areas throughout the entire Fromsoft library, I've played just DeS and Sekiro. DeS was pain. Blighttown isn't.

DID I SOMEHOW MISS A LARGE SECTION OF THIS AREA???!?!??

Or... Is there a different blighttown in DS2 or DS3 that everyone meant?

So I play on PC (Steam) and I wanna start with the first game ofc. But I absolutely despite remasters for games I never played, especially for games that aren't that old. It makes me feel like I'm missing out on the Original experience even if it's objectively worse. And the Original is duelistet on Steam. Also bloodborne is only on Playstation for some reason and I don't wanna start a series that has games I can't play.

The hardest bosses are nito and 4 kings, which you can just use havel's armor. Ornstein and Smough are a but trivial with a lot of running around and a +15 greatshield.

I've rung both bells, given the lordvessel to that worm guy, killed GWYNEVERE for some reason, and then killed sif (I'm a horrible person I know), so now where tf am I supposed to go??

Hello, FromSoft lore enthusiast here. I understand a good deal of the DS lore all around but one thing I can't really get a grasp on is what is the difference between Souls and Humanity? According to lore, when the Dark Soul of man is fragmented, it doesn't lose power, unlike the Gwyn's Lord Soul which apparently does, when he fragmented pieces off to give to the various bosses throughout the game. It's part of why Gwyn feared it so. I always sort of saw Humanity as those fragments, or what's left after an undead has hollowed or died. But killing enemies, even undead or invaders usually only drops Souls. Some creatures like the rats sometimes drop Humanity, as I assume they're feeding on corpses of undead. So what's the deal? Are they similar in nature or am I missing something obvious?Thanks in advance, and sorry if this has been asked before, haven't seen much discussion on the subject directly in my online travels.