A Deeper Dive into the Souls Series fandom

   Fig 1:The video games Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring 

    

    Dark Souls is a video game series well known for its difficulty and lore, even with its title becoming the coined phrase soul-like genre. The game is set in a crumbling world feeding off of a power source called the flame, it's the main catalyst to how the player progresses through the different landscapes and creatures all connected to the fire and to defeat the four Lords gather their souls so you choose to keep the Age of Fire going or become a Lord of Darkness and let the flame die out bringing a new Age of Darkness. The series became famous after its first game was released in 2009 by a development company called FromSoftware founded in 1986 and the developer of all of the Souls games Hidetaka Miyazaki. (n.d.) After the many changes through the Soul games, the series has grown a large fanbase consisting of artists, lore enthusiasts, and cosplayers.

Artist Who Put Their Soul Into It

       Dark Souls and its always-changing characters allow for a diverse plethora of art to be made by the fandom of Dark Souls fans on Deviant Art creating things ranging from self-inserted characters to NPCs, and bosses that sometimes have significant pieces of lore put into their art. (Fig 2) A different art that the community put its soul into is animations. This allows the artist to take creative liberties and choose what to do with the characters from the game and portray interesting situations where the artist can either make an animation accurate to the lore behind the characters in the game, insert themselves into conversation with a character of their choice, or make a character do profound things like to make them do something that is currently trending in today's world. (Vid 1) These different ways that artist have shown their love for the game even after its release create the idea of a community that cares for its game series. A big reason people haven't given up on this game series would be its expansive lore that keeps the fanbase busy.

Fig 2: Fanart of Siegward of Catarina (Dark Souls 3)

Vid 1: Dark Souls characters dancing to "Take On Me" by a-ha

Lore Lovers of Dark Souls

    The lore of Dark Souls is not all out there for anyone to see it's given through conversations between the player and NPCS, descriptions given by items or consumables, and visual aspects of different landscapes scattered across the lands where the game takes place. People that love the game will go into forums to ask questions about an item that may give off a piece of the story but not the whole pie or may ask why some places look the way they are and how did it look in the past? (Fig 3) Lore hunting in the games would be hard even with forums made to help people due to the fact that everything might not be covered in these talks between people online but there are other ways lore fans have shown their knowledge which is seen through videos dedicated to a character with how they are made into who they are, how areas in the game where made into the grotesque lands they are now, or how a faction in the game was made and their goal in the game. An example of a person who makes these would be a youtube named VaatiVidya who makes videos that go into deeper descriptions of lore in Dark Souls he has made dozens of videos on all lore told by each game under the jurisdiction of Souls games. (Vid 2)

In-game lore has become so vast that the fanbase has been able to create communities dedicated to uncovering the truths behind them and allowing for the fanbase to connect as a whole. The games have made everyone so connected that people have begun to cosplay the characters in the game.

Fig 3: Forum on The Age of Dark (Dark Souls)

Vid 2: Lore of Greirat by VaatiVidya

The CosPlayers

     Video games have had people cosplay as their characters going to conventions to represent their characters and Dark Souls is no exception. It allows for people in the fanbase to show off to other fanbases the culture of their game and the ability to act out what a character would do when meeting others outside of their game. A staple of the Souls characters would be a person called Solaire due to his infatuation with the sun praising it as a god and being a close friend to the player wanting to help defeat bosses with "Jolly Cooperation".  This made him a favorite amongst the fans of the game which has led to many people wanting to cosplay him. Someone who has loved this character so much he has cosplayed as him multiple times would be a youtube going by the name of D Piddy who has cosplayed as many different characters throughout his career on youtube doing different characters from Deadpool, Guilty Gear, and many animes that are famous in today's social media. He even copies different aspects of the game when he cosplays as Solaire by doing emotes like praising the sun or doing rolls around conventions interacting with the communities like LVL UP EXPO 2019, Saboten Con 2017, and SacAnime Summer 2022. (Vid 3) The conviction to dress up as a character and act like them when meeting with other people is a core aspect of how the fanbase shows its love for the world and the characters FromSoftware has made.

    

Vid 3: Solaire invades LVL UP EXPO 2019

    

Conclusion

Video games have created mass fanbases that love the work and dedication they have put into them so others can enjoy it when picking up the games series as a new player and learning the fun mechanics/lore built into the game. Dark Souls has amassed a large following of people devoted to the game and has created fanbases to appreciate their games in many different ways. The fact that the fanbase has stayed loyal to this series has shown how strong an impact a video game can have on a person. This series is one that many continue to support because it can bring a hard experience of a game and a story with different perspectives and characters that have ambitions that may collide or align with the player making an overall enjoyable experience.

References

(Fig 1) Greenbaum, A. (2022, July 2). From demon’s souls to Elden Ring: Every Fromsoftware Soulsborne game ranked easiest to hardest. Den of Geek. https://www.denofgeek.com/games/every-fromsoftware-soulsborne-game-ranked-easiest-hardest/ 

History. (2023). FromSoftware. https://www.fromsoftware.jp/ww/company_history.html.

(Fig 2) Grecia-Frangos. (2018, June 6). Darksouls - Siegward by. DeviantArt. https://www.deviantart.com/grecia-frangos/art/DARKSOULS-Siegward-748531917

(Vid 1) [ThePruld] When you go dark souls with your best mates. (2016). YouTube. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://youtu.be/bzJDimvPW1Y.

(Fig 3) Dragonscholar. (2018, January 25). The age of dark - fextralife forum. Fextralife. https://fextralife.com/forums/t547232/the-age-of-dark/

(Vid 2) Greirat the Thief. (2016). YouTube. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://youtu.be/IXcc7koJ13w.

(Vid 3) Solaire of Astora Invades LVL UP EXPO 2019. (2019). YouTube. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://youtu.be/Gt3Rf8blW_g.