The best of PC Gamer's Dark Souls stories

Features
By published

A collection of our favourite tales from Lordran, Drangleic and Lothric.

Got Soul

Dark Souls is one of PC Gamer's highest rated series. Rich McCormick took on its Prepare to Edition, Cory Banks tackled its 2014 follow-up, and James praised the third entry's sun.

Dark Souls: Remastered is out now on PC, and we've got Chosen Undead fever. Dark Souls delerium? Lordran lurgy? Whatever, we've spent today praising the sun and now wish to shine a light on our favourite Dark Souls tales. 

From fashion to flavour text, deceitful covenants and dumb crab infestations—the following list explores Dark Souls from its a myriad of perspectives, all testament to the series' widespread influence and appeal.  

Without further ado, here are PC Gamer's greatest Dark Souls stories. 

Is Dark Souls Remastered worth playing without its former mystery?
Shaun asks a pertinent question with the series' most useless (or is it?) item in mind. 

The art of flavour text
Alex Wiltshire explores how developers use in-game descriptions to bring worlds to life. Dark Souls' use of flavour text, argues Alex, is an exemplar of the form.

How Return to Lordran reinvigorated Dark Souls' online community
Steven T. Wright discusses the Reddit event that brought invasions back to the homeland.

Why Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City’s final boss is one of the series’ best
James lovingly profiles Slave Knight Gael—a pitiful, admirable figure that teaches as much as he terrorises.

5 ways to spice up your Dark Souls PvP life
Lauren Morton offers guidance that'll encourage your sparring partner to say 'very good!'

Sometimes games are better without music
FTL composer Ben Prunty writes about games that sidestep music while conjuring atmosphere. Naturally, Dark Souls features heavily. 

The 'Souls-like' label needs to die
Austin argues that while Dark Souls is one of the most influential games of the last decade, it shouldn't be treated as a template.

Dark Souls 3 and the tragedy of a fallen knight
Andy speculates on the backstories of fallen comrades by way of item descriptions. 

In search of the mysterious Dark Souls fashion police
Lauren Morton digs through years of reported sightings in an attempt to identify the original sheriff of Fashion Souls.

How Dark Souls 3's Aldrich Faithful covenant turns good people into trolling monsters
Xalavier Nelson examines one of Dark Souls' cruellest covenants, and explains why being a bastard there is easy.  

Why I love Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City's brilliantly incongruous architecture
Joe enjoys the view from Dark Souls 3's southernmost point, and suggests why it's a fitting final setting for Miyazaki's twisted vision. 

Why I'm glad Dark Souls is dead
James, a Dark Souls aficionado, is glad we've woken from Miyazaki's nightmare. 

Why we praise the sun: the story of Dark Souls' most famous gesture
Lauren Morton explains that without an act of rebellion from Hidetaka Miyazaki, Dark Souls would be without its brilliant mascot.

The good, the dead, and the ugly: our favorite Dark Souls enemies
James rounds up the series' most horrifying, challenging, and poignant monsters.

The best and worst Dark Souls bosses
Straight up: our picks from across the entire series.

Finally falling in love with Dark Souls 3
Having bounced off the series several times, Andy finds his stride in Lothric.

We need to stop talking about how difficult Dark Souls is
"If there’s anything we need to ‘git gud’ at," says James, "it’s treating Dark Souls as something more than a vessel for primping tough guy video game egos worldwide."

Why I love Dark Souls' Sen's Fortress
Joe compares the formidable prison to the board game Mouse Trap. Obviously.

The mystery of the big dumb crabs infesting Dark Souls 3
James cracks the third Souls game's crab case.

Meet the Dark Souls detective uncovering Lothric's cut content
Joe interviews Soulsborne sleuth Lance McDonald—an indie dev turned hobbyist game engineer unearthing Dark Souls' forgotten secrets. 

TOPICS
PC Gamer
PC Gamer

The collective PC Gamer editorial team worked together to write this article. PC Gamer is the global authority on PC games—starting in 1993 with the magazine, and then in 2010 with this website you're currently reading. We have writers across the US, UK and Australia, who you can read about here.