Ten Years of DARK SOULS III

DARK SOULS III — the final entry in FromSoftware's breakthrough trilogy of fantasy videogames — turned 10 years old as of April 2026. As such, I thought that I'd use this birthday shout-out as an excuse to reminisce about a solid bit of videogame history.

So, rather bleakly (even by FromSoftware standards), DARK SOULS III picks up at the end of all things, where the first flame has been rekindled one too many times by one too many heroes, and where all life wanes. The world is a grey place (in every sense of the word), where ruins sit atop ruins, and where time itself collapses to a haunting soundtrack. [Clears throat] Ahem, take note, DARK SOULS II: Scholar of the First Sin.

Grimmer still, it soon becomes clear that no amount of success from the player shall be able to course-correct the circumstances either. And that right there is perhaps the most difficult pill to swallow: regardless of how many playthroughs you endure, a strong sense of death (or some other inevitable, inescapable, and soul-crushing end coming to fruition) is stark all throughout.

Now, digging a little deeper and illuminating how this wretched world affects the player more directly, we can immediately see its biggest flaw: linearity. Yes, similarly to its predecessor, DARK SOULS III is essentially a series of long paths through distinct biomes, which creep further and further away from the central hub area. Because of this, the bonfire fast travel mechanic is necessary to navigate the world — something very unfortunate, for sure. With all that said, though, I'm certain that the black magic deployed to mould the first game's seamless, looping world was so intangible, fleeting, and downright elusive that even Miyazaki struggles to recapture it.

Moving on from the dire and miserable aesthetic, we approach something a little more lively: combat. And I really do mean lively because this area of the game has seen a significant overhaul when compared to many of the series’ previous entries. À la Bloodborne, combat speed and enemy aggression have had their respective dials cranked to max, meaning that slow and steady no longer wins the race.

In an effort to double down on the all-around more aggressive gameplay loop, physical defence as a whole has also seen tweaks. Now, shields and armour typically do not block as much damage as they once did, and the Poise and Hyper Armor mechanics have more or less been merged. Lessening the effects of these defensive items forces players to rely more so on avoiding damage altogether through dodging or parrying.

Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of this somewhat drastic overhaul because I don't think it supports what DARK SOULS in particular is all about. Due to this experimental nature, in my mind, it now sits in a weird limbo between Bloodborne and ELDEN RING, not managing to touch either in terms of execution of mechanics.

Other gameplay changes that I do like, though, include a successful (Demon's Souls–esque) reworking of the weapon upgrade system and the introduction of Weapon Arts — unique abilities inherent to each armament.

The last item on the list that I wish to discuss are the boss fights — the area where the otherwise unnecessary speed increase actually feels welcome! Man, oh, man, are these some damn good bosses: some are slow, some are small, some are fast, and some are tall.

Once again, having taken liberal amounts of inspiration from Bloodborne, we have a veritable buffet of bosses to battle this time around. There's even the obligatory gimmick encounter in the form of High Lord Wolnir, so the game truly leaves no stone unturned in the boss fight department. Oh, and the multi-stage setup — where bosses hulk out mid-fight — is the icing on the cake, due to the fog-thick tension that it always exudes.

Now, it's well worth noting, as I wrap up this little article of mine, that all of this was director Hidetaka Miyazaki's intention from the beginning, being the clever and creative little sausage that he is. This game, with its themes of death and its showcase of new mechanics, is a message to the fanbase: DARK SOULS is dead.