Beating the final boss of a Dark Souls game can be an overwhelming experience. You reflect on your journey, the countless hours and failed attempts that led you to this moment, and a wave of emotion rolls over you.

The Twitch channel of Eric “McRaptor” Harper was host to a litany of these moments during the recent “Souls-4-Souls” (SFS) charity tournament that ran in late April. When you think of competitive gaming tournaments, Dark Souls probably doesn’t spring to mind. However, SFS featured 25 challenge runners racing through Soulsborne games as quickly as possible whilst trying to take zero hits. Thousands tuned in to watch.

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Dark Souls modders are forged in the flames of adversity. While mostly limited to technical improvements (such as Durante’s fixes for the wonky original PC port) and small texture packs, the past few years have brought about a whole new genre of Souls mods for all three games. While limited in what can be added to the trilogy (though breakthroughs are being made on that front, too), it turns out that by creatively rearranging what’s already there, you can get what feels almost like a new game. Today, we take a peek at a bundle of B-Side adventures across the entire series.

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You might have heard of Berserk already. A few people have pointed out the similarities between Hidetaka Miyazaki s Souls series and the manga Berserk. Perhaps you ve even gotten curious, toyed with the idea of getting into it, but without a clear idea of where to start. Or perhaps you got the impression that Berserk is not for you.

You may have heard Berserk is filled with violence, sexual assault, gore, grim characters and questionable content. And for the most part, you would be right. But at its core, Berserk is about love.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.>

Dark Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Demon’s Souls > Dark Souls 2.

But if you like the rest, you should still play number 2. It’s good. Being good just isn’t quite enough when you’re born into a family of geniuses. (more…)

If you fancy going back through all Dark Souls before the series wraps up with the final DLC in March, now’s a great time to return to Dark Souls 2 [official site]. Today sees the start of Return to Drangleic, an unofficial community-run event to draw players back and revitalise multiplayer. Souls just isn’t the same without online invasions, summonings, ghosts, and messages bringing life to the world, so players are returning en masse to rekindle that spark. Fancy joining them? … [visit site to read more]

If I have learned anything from reading other people’s opinions about Dark Souls it’s that Dark Souls is probably a metaphor for something. But what? WHAT? There are so many conflicting opinions out there.

Well, that’s where your pal, Pip (that is me), can help. I have come up with a definitive list of ways to interpret Dark Souls correctly:

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Ever had one of those games that you just long to get into, but can’t? There haven’t been many I’ve wanted to get into more than the Dark Souls series. To sink into the world I see people talking about on my Twitter feed. To have that sense of discovery in ash and ember. For that crumbling world to feel like something more than just a succession of traps and gauntlets. I want to like Dark Souls. I really hope Dark Souls 3 is the clicking point. But… so far, (whispers)> I’ve never managed to like Dark Souls.

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It’ll take a great deal of analysis to figure out how exactly Dark Souls III [official site] fits into the wider mythology of the series in terms of its tremendous, cryptic lore, and it might take even longer for critical opinion to decide where it ranks in the pantheon of Souls games. But we can all agree on one thing, right? Dark Souls is superior to its first sequel in almost every way.

Not Michael Johnson. Here, he argues that Dark Souls II changes and improves on the formula set by its predecessor and that it has the greatest expansions in all of gaming.>

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Dark Souls III [official site] is already out in Japan but the rest of the world has to wait until April 12th. I received review code late last week and have spent a few hours kindling bonfires and carving my way through the early stages of the game. I’ve also, as you might imagine, died quite a lot>.

Our full review will be closer to the international release but I wanted to share some thoughts about the opening areas, the PC version and the overall quality of what I’ve seen so far. No spoilers regarding bosses or locations.

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Dark Souls is the famously easy and brightly-coloured walking simulator beloved of casual gamers, and scorned by the hardcore. If you’ve long desired to frolic in its pastel fields but been unwilling to scrape together the requisite pennies, the good news is that, if you live in the EU (including UK), you can currently grab a Steam code for it for free. I know it says ‘Prepare To Die’ in the subtitle, but that’s just a typo – it’s actually ‘Prepare To Dye’, in reference to its acclaimed dressmaking minigame. … [visit site to read more]