Sam Winkler @ThatSamWinkler Follow Dark Souls revolutionized games, in the sense that instead of a story now you can just have some guy with a big SWord named Myrmidon of Loss who gasps “Zanzibart… forgive me” when he dies and then twenty YouTubers will make an hour long video about how deep your lore is

  • not_a_dog@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I like their method of storytelling because it’s fairly unique in the gaming landscape (at least, the landscape of the last 20+ years). 95% of stories in other games use the very traditional, straight-forward format with a ton of exposition and cinematic cutscenes and can be easily understood by anyone at an elementary reading level. I don’t say that with disdain and there is nothing at all wrong with that method, as long as it is interesting and well-written, but it’s refreshing to see them doing something different. I also like it because it’s sort of the best of both worlds; you can either completely disregard the story if you’re not interested (which is easy to do because Souls games don’t have much in the way of forced exposition) and it won’t really hinder your enjoyment of the game (if you’re primarily interested in the action elements), or you can dive in deep with all of the discussion and theorizing in the community and the abundance of lore videos. It sort of reminds me of gaming in the early days. For example, when the original Legend of Zelda came out, one of my favorite aspects of that and similar games was the hours of discussion and speculation me and my friends would have as the game was exceedingly sparse on details. I think FromSoft does this intentionally as a nod to early game design and the fact that it is inherently more engaging (again, for those that are interested) as obviated by the wealth of discourse you find in any Souls game forum. Go look at God of War or Last of Us forums, for example. There is some, but not nearly as much story or lore discussion in those communities because everything is provided to the gamer and it is all clearly laid out (though I do still enjoy those respective stories for what they are, also).