Starting Dark Souls in 2024

Why play Dark Souls?

I have started the Souls games fairly recently. Renowned for their infamous difficulty, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend my money on pure frustration. After pondering for years, I finally decided to start with Bloodborne for 2 reasons: the PS4 second hand game is cheap, and it’s not part of any series so it has the potential to be short and sweet. It took a bit of time getting into it, but as soon as I understood the mindset of the game, I was completely hooked and surprised by how much I enjoyed it. So then I played Dark Souls 3, and went on to the first one. I now believe anyone curious about these games should try them, and more importantly: do it without checking guides online. Really. The moments I played without looking at solutions I enjoyed the most.

But the issue is, these games have their own logic, and many things are not explained at all in game. You don’t get a tutorial, only the controls and some very basic indications. Other than that, you’re propelled into a hostile world and good luck. Combats are hard and sometimes unforgiving. But it’s not the worst part because of counter measures available to the player:

• Summoning NPCs or online players. Another character appears and fights by your side, tremendously raising your odds at winning.
• Levelling up your character and upgrading your equipment. It will boost your damage, health, damage absorption… rendering some enemies trivial.
• Some messages are left by online players to help and support you. You’ll also find nonsense so beware.

In my opinion exploring and understanding the world is the hardest part. Partly because it requires a lot of time and attention, due to the story being quite opaque. But the thing is, it’s also the best part. That’s why I’d strongly advise against online guides, at least for the first run. Navigating the world haphazardly, trying things, searching where to go and stumbling upon a new area, realizing how it’s connected to the rest of the world and to the story is a feeling like no other in video game. Enemies can kill you fairly easily, so progressing while unsure where you’re going gives you a strong sense of risk and adventure. It comes with its lot of frustration, which almost made me quit at one point, but it’s part of the experience.

If that type of challenge is something you can get behind, here are a few pointers to help you enjoy your first run. They apply to most games I’ve played, but many are specific to Dark Souls 1.

Helpful tips no spoilers

I’ve split the tips in terms of gameplay, story, and general. Sorted by decreasing order of importance.

Gameplay

Basics

• Killing enemies yields souls. It’s like a currency that you can spend on levelling up, items or services. Your total is displayed at the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
• Bonfires are a key element of gameplay (lamps in Bloodborne). They’re places where you can perform certain actions: levelling up, sorting items in the bottomless box, kindling, using humanity, repairing equipment, and most importantly: resting. More on all that bellow.
• Every time you rest at a bonfire, few things happen: enemies will appear again. But also: your health is fully restored, as well as your Estus flasks, and that bonfire becomes a checkpoint. Next time you die, that’s where you’ll come back.
• Whenever you die, you lose all your souls. You can reclaim them by reaching the spot of your previous death. Look for a green shimmering bloodstain. If you die again before reclaiming them, they’re lost forever. Dying twice in a row is one of the biggest sources of frustration in the game, so learn to deal with that. Don’t hoard the souls, use them when you reach a bonfire, by levelling up whenever you can. On the other hand, having lost all the souls relieves some pressure and stress which sometimes helps progressing so it’s not all bad.
• Levels. On a normal thorough run, you can expect to reach around level 80 to 100. Your stats will increase slowly, so commit to a few stats to make the most of it. It is helpful to have some idea of who your character is. Is it a fighter? A magician? Is it fighting with dexterity and light weapon or with strength and heavy weapons? Is it casting its spells through faith or intelligence? There is no bad decision, but it’s important to stick to it.

Stats

• Equipment load is a stat determining how much you can carry, primarily impacted by your endurance level. Theoretically there is no limit to how heavy you can go, but your character will become slower the fuller the equipment load, up to the point where you can only slowly walk and not roll any more. There are thresholds to the movement speed, the main one to keep in mind is 50%. If you go above, your movement and roll speed will take a big toll, aka fat roll. Objects in your inventory don’t matter here, unless you wear them. So it’s all a balance between how heavy you want your equipment to be, and how many endurance points you want to use, and how fast you want to run.
• Sometimes it is a good idea to unequip everything to run faster
• Status effects are important to understand. Some enemies will deal damage types that have side effects: bleed, poison, toxic and curse are the main ones. If an enemy hits you with that, it will cause some extra damage, but more importantly it will cause a build up represented by a bar in the middle of the screen. This build up is harmless until the bar is completely full, activating an effect specific for each type. The severity varies. Poison is not too bad, but the rest leads to more or less instant death so it’s important to find items to cure it, or to prevent it filling up in the first place. I’ll let you find your own way to deal with that.
• How to choose a weapon: In your inventory, you can check objects stats. Go to the weapons, display the stats, and look for the category called ParamBonus. You might recognize some icons from your character’s stats: Strength, dexterity, intelligence and faith. The letter next to it will tell you how well the item scales with certain stats. If there’s an A next to strength, then levelling up your strength will improve that weapon immensely. B a bit less, C less again etc… This can help guide your choice of weapon.
• Next to ParamBonus you have ReqParam which is the minimum required stat for you to use that weapon. If you have less, you’ll be able to equip it but it will be ineffective (do almost no damage, be very slow etc…)

Moves

• In my opinion Dark Souls is easier played with a controller, but I’m sure many people disagree. The rest of the guide is assuming you’ll use a controller.
• You can backstab a lot of enemies. Either sneak on an enemy, they’re less likely to hear you if you walk slowly. Or find a way to hit them with [R1] from behind during combat. Timing your roll with their attacks and running behind them is sometimes enough. It takes some practice but it’s worth it because it deals a lot of damage.
• You can parry many attacks. Many shields and some weapons equipped on the left hand allow you to parry, but not all (check the shield/weapon stats, it will be written at the top if you can parry or strike with it). Execute the parry move [L2] shortly before getting hit. If timed correctly, it will not only negate all damage, but also open up the enemy to a powerful riposte. To riposte press [R1] shortly after a successful parry. You’ll know it worked if your character plunges its weapon into the enemy instead of hitting it normally. Again, it takes practice but it’s a very valuable skill to have. Even some bosses are vulnerable to parrying. Beware though, some enemies can parry you too.
• You can kick enemies to break their guard, or stop some attacks. Especially handy when they’re using a shield. Or when you want to push them off a ledge. It’s a bit tricky to execute because you need to push the movement stick (Left Stick) forward at the same time you press [R1]. There’s a short time window between the stick’s resting position and the moment it is pushed forward that allows you to kick.
• You can jump and hit at the same time. Executing it is like a kick but with [R2] instead of [R1]. It is a heavier blow and allows you to close in on an enemy. But uses more stamina and is a slower move than regular hits.
• You can go down ladders quickly by pressing the dodge button. In Dark Souls 1 you just need to press it once to slide down the ladder. If you do that in other titles you will jump off the ladder so be careful. In order to use ladders quickly (up/down) in DS2 and 3 you’ll need to keep dodge pressed and move up or down.
• To jump you’ll need to first run and then press dodge. It’s rarely a useful move, but there are a few spots in the game where it’s the only way to reach an area (most of these are optional so don’t worry if you can’t land a perfect jump)

Undefeatable enemies

• Skeletons: you’ll need a divine weapon to kill them for good.
• Ghosts: you’ll need to use transient curse or to be truly cursed to be able to even hit them.

What’s up with humanity?

This is very specific to DS1. At the top left next to your health is a number. It is the humanity number, sometimes referred to as soft humanity. To raise this number:

• Kill enemies in an area. Killing one enemy is like recovering a little bit of humanity. Killing many will give you a full unit. Clearing an area entirely can yield up to 10 humanities. It only works once per enemy. Killing the same enemy a second time won’t give you any more humanity.
• Sometimes when exploring, or when defeating an enemy or boss you’ll loot an object called humanity. Using it will grant you one soft humanity. It will also heal you.
• Playing as a phantom to help someone online to defeat a boss will give you a humanity

Holding humanity means you can use it. Go to a bonfire to do the following:

• Regaining humanity. It means becoming human again. The number will turn white. If you’re naked, you’ll notice your body becoming more… alive, turning you human again, enabling you to do the two following points
• Kindle a bonfire. The bonfire will now give you more Estus uses when you rest there.
• Summon a phantom helper to beat a boss (as well as invading or being invaded by phantoms)

You’ll lose the soft humanity you hold when you die, as well as your human appearance. You reclaim humanity when you reclaim your souls. But regaining your human form will still require you to use one humanity.

Holding humanity will give you some benefits:

• increasing discovery stat, meaning you more likely to loot objects on defeated enemies. Caps at 30.
• improve damage on specific weapons (the chaos type)
• some better resistance to physical and elemental damage, and against curse

General tips

• Most of the game you’ll have to travel from one point to another walking. Bonfires act as checkpoints so dying will make you have to walk a LOT. To counter this problem, there are many shortcuts that you can unlock as you progress. Unlocking shortcuts will be crucial. Look for doors to open, elevators to unlock, ladders to roll down.
• You’ll have to walk more or less to reach a boss, which can be annoying. Everything within reason though. If it feels like you have to walk longer than usual to reach a boss (longer than 3 minutes without fighting mobs) it means there’s probably a closer bonfire or a shortcut nearby. Time to explore some more and find a better way.
• Most people you see in the game will be hostile, but some will be neutral or friendly. So beware of NPCs, some look hostile but are actually very friendly and helpful. Some look trustworthy but aren’t. Though 99% of the time, there is no reason to doubt your first judgement. It is possible to kill everyone. Use discretion on who you choose to kill and who you spare.
• If you’ve made a boo boo and hit a friendly NPC rendering them hostile, you can run away. It’s not mandatory to finish them off. There are ways to get absolution for your sins. Killing is not always the solution.
• There are secret passages hidden behind illusory walls. Hitting or rolling against an illusory wall will make it disappear, opening the way to a secret room or passage. There isn’t really a way to tell what’s an illusory wall and what isn’t unless you hit it. There are many messages left by other online players that sometimes indicate them, otherwise you can try to hit random walls if the architecture looks like there should be a passage.
• In the Undead Burg, you will find a merchant selling you unique items (not the weapons armour or consumables. I’d recommended buying them all as soon as you can, especially the bottomless box. They’re not mandatory to progress but will make your life easier.
• Beware of walking mushrooms.
• Interface hack: when you have the stats open on a weapon or armour, you don’t need to close it to check the next weapon. You can simply press the down/up arrow to see the stats of the next/previous weapon on the list.
• Your inventory will get very full the more you loot things. You’ll find that you only use several items, so it is recommended to put some things away in the bottomless box at bonfires, so that you don’t lose too much time searching for the weapons or armours you actually use.
• Don’t forget to repair your weapons and armour every now and then. They can’t break per se but will become useless if they reach a critical level.
• The game will not punish you for using an item. While there are some ways to optimise your resources, if you want to try something out, do it. It’s part of ways you can experiment. I’m always tempted to hoard items for later use and unsure whether it’s wise to use objects. There’s no real need to worry here.
• If it feels like you should be able to do something, there is probably a way to do it. It might be convoluted, or require a special item. But there usually is a way.
• If you see green lizards spewing green gas: RUN. If you breathe the gas, they can afflict you with a curse. You do not want to be cursed. It is part of the experience but man… If you do get cursed, well, go to a wiki and check what your best option is.

Story

You don’t need to know everything to enjoy the games, and there are TONS of theory videos, or lore articles explaining exactly which character does what. You can go through the whole game not knowing what’s up and only afterwards checking what the meaning of it is. But I believe it is more enjoyable when you have these few things in mind, still without spoilers:

• The Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne depict worlds in decay. Big cities crumbling down, ambitious people who refuse to let go of the past, even though clinging creates more damage. The stories can be seen through the lens of melancholy. Your character fights for a potential slim improvement of a situation that tends to degrade itself.
• Dark Souls 1 starts with an opening cinematic that lays out the mythology of the world. It may sound like a bunch of nonsense, but all the information given is relevant to understand what’s going on. All the mentioned characters impact the story in various ways. The humanoids mentioned are all beings who found souls of lords in the first flame. Souls of Lords hold and grant a lot of power and longevity, essentially making you a god. the Witch of Izalith (fire magician, created the pyromancy magic), Gravelord Nito (lord of death basically), Lord Gwyn (who lead the war against dragons amongst other very important things), Seath the Scaleless (a dragon born without scales who betrayed his kind by disclosing to Gwyn the secret to pierce dragon scales: using lightning magic), and the Furtive Pigmy (there’s a reason why we don’t know much about him but basically he’s the bearer of the dark soul, and his fate explains why humans turn undead).
• Many humans went crazy, aka hollow. That is why the game starts in an asylum. They died and revived again and again, causing them to lose their sanity. It is an important narrative device to keep in mind, and a key sign of the decay of the world. It can be seen as the reason why some enemies spawn every time you rest, and some others die forever. I like to think about the time scale of the game. Perhaps 1 month goes by between the moment we die, and the moment we try again. Time seems to be very distorted in the game, and some characters are basically timeless so it’s interesting to think about that.
• Exploring is a good way to find clues about the meaning of the story. You will find items, and if you read their description in the inventory, then you’ll have some more information and leads as to what to do next.

That’s all for now! I hope it’s helpful. Let me know if there’s some things I should add/remove. Have fun!