FewquirksoftheSoulsuniverse
typify its cyclical format like the
demon race. Deep within the first
game’s Lost Izalith and Demon
Ruins, demonkind thrives. Capra,
Taurus and Centaur demons patrol
the fiery depths, and there are few
boss battles as epic as Ceaseless
Discharge and Bed of Chaos.
Fast forward to Dark Souls 3, and
the lava lords are on their last legs.
It’s not immediately obvious, but
rediscovering the sequel’s iteration of
Demon Ruins, tucked behind an
illusory wall beneath the Catacombs
of Carthus, lets you see the extent of
thedwindlingrace.Petrified
variations of Izalith’s beasts line the
walls, and this world’s Taurus
demons bear no flames and exude
crumbling dust with every move.
More interesting still, if you take
the Old Demon King down to his last
sliver of health, he slumps forward,
near-extinguished and unable to
muster the strength to lift his club.
Here, he represents the last bastion of
demonkind. It’s a brilliant but easily
missed nod to the doomed-to-repeat-
itself nature of the Souls world, and
the state of the demon race during
this particular cycle.SIEGMEYER AND
SIEGLINDE
Siegmeyer and Sieglinde of Catarina’s
combined sidequest is one of the best
in the Souls series. It’s heartfelt, it’s
intriguing, it requires skill and timing
in equal measure and it takes you all
over the world map, before
concluding in Ash Lake.
Despite the myriad ways Dark
Souls can be interpreted, few of its
quests are genuinely poignant, and
when you mix a stubborn, thrill-
seeking father who’s travelled to
Lordran in the midst of a mid-life
crisis, a daughter who’d travel to the
ends of the earth to protect and/or
enlighten him, and themes of death
and mortality, you’re onto a winner.
And when Dark Souls wins, more
often than not, you and its NPCs lose.
If you haven’t seen this quest
through to completion before now,
you should, if for nothing else than to
visit one of the game’s most
hauntingly beautiful locations.THE RISEAND FALL OF THE DEMON RACE
PRAISE THE NAMELESS SON
The Nameless King is an optional
boss in Dark Souls 3 that puts one
pretty huge DS1 rumour to bed –
Knight Solaire is not Gwyn’s long-lost
son. Gwyn’s children include
Gwynevere, the Queen of Sunlight
who resides in Anor Londo, moon-
worshiper Gwyndolin, also from
Anor Londo, and his disgraced
firstborn, banished without a trace.
Until the third Dark Souls, a
common forum hypothesis suggested
Knight Solaire was the Lord of
Cinder’s forgotten child. But Dark
Souls 3 suggests that the Nameless
King is in fact Gwyn’s disowned
child, who, as alluded to by the first
game’s crumbling statues, was once
protected by Dragonslayer Ornstein.UPS AND DOWNS
Another simple but neat example of the Souls world’s
cyclical nature is Laddersmith Gilligan’s reappearance
in Dark Souls 3. There’s no real story here, besides the
fact that, as we learn very well in DS2’s central Majula
hub, old Gilly loves ladders. Deep within Yhorm the
Giant’s Profaned Capital, though, there is a dilapidated
structure strewn with ladders.
If you look closely, poor Gilligan is laid flat,
seemingly dead, after a nasty fall. Another cool, if cruel,
nod to the series’ skewed timeline.
Dark Souls
FEATURE