Play ‘Dark Souls’ and you will die — again and again and again.
From Software’s latest game — released this month — is long. It’s hard. It can be almost painful to play. And it has absolutely enthralled videogamers.
Maybe that’s because, like a great spiritual teacher, this videogame challenges gamers to learn. Only then will a player be rewarded with the next challenge.
If you’re a certain sort of spiritual person all of this might sound familiar — and maybe a little insulting. No one is going to become enlightened by grinding away a this game on their XBox 360 or PlayStation 3.
This isn’t Donkey Kong, however. Set in a beautiful, inhospitable world, the player begins the game as a corpse. Or walking corpse, confined to a dungeon in one of the lost corners of the world. Right from the start, the game throws booby traps, combat, and only the faintest of clues about the game’s ultimate quest at new players. Mystery, not a mission, is your motivation.
And what a mystery it is. No spoilers here, but to figure out what’s going on, the game sends the player wandering through frigid mountains, sunless swamps, and ancient cities. To advance, the player harvests the souls of the slain. To recharge, resting points must be located. Choose to rest and the the many monsters you’ve just slain will respawn.
That’s one of the twists that make this game anything but easy. Along the way, you’ll begin piecing together stories about this world, its inhabitants, and its grim history. Completing the game will take 70 hours. And if you’re willing to stick with it, this world begins to stick with you.
This isn’t a video game review, however. It’s the starting poing for a discussion: can a button-mashing videogame be a spiritual teacher? On one level, of course not. Videogame designers can be artists, however, and the bloody stories woven into this game are about souls just as surely as they’re about swords
