I somehow missed that Dark Souls turned 15 two weeks ago. Honestly, what do you even say about it that hasn't been said already? I guess that's why I'm relegating this to a quick post on the PC Gamer Hyperfeed™ rather than a 3-hour YouTube video called something like "The Haunting Ambiguity of Dark Souls 1." The game is undeniably hauntingly ambiguous, though, no word of a lie.
I bounced of Demon's Souls when I first tried it (many such cases), and it took watching a ton of video guides for me to crack this sucker at the beginning of 2014. I was playing the world historically bad Games for Windows Live port on my giant hot laptop in college. I have many fond memories of dragging that thing and its power brick to dorm common spaces or my friends' rooms to feel like I was being social while I ignored everyone and kept dying to Manus over and over.
FromSoft's devs have only grown in power and artistry since, but each new game is so unique in atmosphere and mechanical experimentation that it remains worthwhile to revisit the studio's earlier works. I've played DS1 so many times, though, that I might need to wait another 15 years to forget enough so it can floor me again.
