Damien Mecheri - Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave – Volume 1 (Demons Souls - Dark Souls - Dark Souls II)

Dark Sou/s. Beyond the Grave
by Damien Mecheri and Sylvain Romieu
Edited by Third Editions
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Publishing: Nicolas Courcier and Mehdi El Kanafi
Text: Damien Mecheri and Sylvain Romieu
Editing: Thomas Savary, Christophe Delpierre and Nathan R.
Illustrations: Alexandre Dainche
Layout: Julie Gantois
Cover Creation: Benjamin Brard
Classic Cover: Jan-Philipp Eckert
Collector cover: Hlne Builly
Translated from French by: Elise Kruidenier (ITC Traductions)

This book aims to provide information and pay homage to the great Dark Souls videogame series. In this unique collection, the authors retrace a chapter in the history of the Dark Souls video games, by identifying the inspiration, background and content of this series through original reflection and analysis.

Dark Souls is a registered trademark of Bandai Namco. All rights reserved.

The classic cover art is inspired by artwork from games in the Dark Souls series.

The collector cover art is inspired by the painting Magdalena Bay by Franois-Auguste Briard.

English edition, copyright 2017, Third ditions.

All rights reserved.

ISBN 979-10-94723-57-9

To Hugo,
born as this book was being created.

ONE thing harder than playing Dark Souls is understanding its story. The sheer amount of lore in this game is overwhelming, with the most intricate details hidden within hundreds of item descriptions, dialogue, environmental dues and the gameplay. Harder even still is telling that story. Often, I find my narrative jumping between characters, timelines and games, and I used to worry that Id lose readers in the process. Only after years of practice did I become confident in my ability to bring viewers along with me on one of these tales.

Upon opening Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave, I flipped straight to Chapter Three: Universe, spanning pages 89-217. I knew this section would be the ultimate test of the authors skills, for it is difficult to write emotively about characters whose motivations are a mystery. Its difficult to know where to start when the reader really needs the full picture in order to understand.

Even though I had unfairly skipped 93 pages, I was met with a patient, wise explanation of the way the story works: Everything must be discovered along the way, and sometimes even imagined. This can become frustrating over timeparticularly for more logical players. Every bit of information collected is like a small piece of an immense narrative puzzle. However, even after several complete games, many pieces are still missing. Players can use their imagination to set out again in search of dues within the games decor, character equipment or in other previously neglected spaces. In spite of the years that have passed since the first Souls game, its hardly surprising that the community of players still buzzes with excitement. People discover new elements every day, adding their stones to the vast cosmogonie edifice. Between new ambiguous information and eccentric theories, the Souls universe has never stopped breathing.

Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave shows the story respect. The telling of the lore is emotive enough to keep you entertained, but never strays too far from what is known for certain. The authors are careful to acknowledge their dives into the unknown, and deferential to attention span, stopping just shy of the ever-present threat of too much information.

Take, for example, this quote that precedes the chapter on the beginning of Dark Souls: The Flame, true embodiment of the Age of Fire, would one day begin to flicker. Was this a terrible curse besetting the kingdom, or simply the passage of time? Who can say? What is certain is that the Flame was on the brink of going out.

The authors then writes: It is at this moment that the story of Dark Souls begins. For you, reader of this Preface, I believe the same holds true.

VaatiVidya, One of the worlds greatest specialists of Dark Souls lore.

GANDHI said that any single verse selected at random from the Bhagavad Gita would brighten the darkest moments of his life.

Modern game designers could say the same thing regarding the Souls series, and Dark Souls in particular: every aspect, even anecdotal, is a major lesson, a wellspring of inspiration that, like many of the dungeons in this awe-inspiring game, seems to have no end.

As with many great discoveries, the magic of the Souls series does not result from a perfectly formed ensemble, but rather from the repeated convergence of happy accidents. In Dark Souls: Design Works (2013) Miyazaki admits that the idea of a world revolving around light and dark came late in the production process. The initial project was inspired by the importance of water, and the Firelink Shrine sunken chapel is a vestige of that first concept.

Game designers can find it unsettling and demoralizing when the foundations of a production are thus shifted, but the teams remained focused on the essentials of what makes a truly good game (level design, gameplay, atmosphere and the desire to make a new kind of game) in order to create this beacon that now guides us all, if indeed it is possible for a beacon to shine with darkness and melancholy.

Borderlands and Halo both mirror Dark Souls in some ways, but there are a number of independent games that borrow some or all of the series mechanics and reference points, as if the creators were cursed, and were seeing to convey through their production a faint echo of what possessed them.

At a master class in Paris, Greg Zeschuk, the mind behind Baldurs Gate, Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, was asked if he still plays games. He answered that he wasnt really drawn to any games really, except maybe