Review code provided by publisher.

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To begin, I have no idea why the Dark Souls 3 footage came out so choppy - it wasn't running like that as I was playing, even when I was capturing footage. I tried seven times to render the video with different settings and got super stressed as it didn't change. The other game footage is fine for some reason, but after all those hours spent rendering, I decided to just say fuck it and upload it anyway (let's face it, you're all here to hear my silky smooth voice, right?). In all seriousness, I apologise for the stuttering of some of the footage - I'm new to the capturing footage game and I'm still figuring this stuff out. Bear with me.

I know that in the thank you video I would be talking about Metal Gear Solid - that video is coming, but I wanted to talk about this first. Also, this will be the last Dark Souls video for a little while, I promise!

As I have been playing Dark Souls 3, despite the fact that it bears some mechanical similarities to DS2, I have become even more set in my opinion that DS2 was a disappointment, whilst DS3 is on par with Dark Souls 1 in terms of quality. There are many reasons for this, but for this episode I wanted to focus on one element in particular.

That element is the fact that Dark Souls 2 (IN MY OPINION) missed the mark in terms of the tone the rest of the series was going for. That is to say that 2 felt like the developers were doing everything in their power to make the player's experience as difficult as possible - this meant a sadistic focus on the player from every enemy. Every being in that world existed for the purpose of making the player the centre of the action.

As I illustrate through specific examples, the hostility of Dark Souls 1 and 3 is baked into its world and narrative design. These games, instead of trying to force their hostility in the player's face, focus more on oppressive atmosphere - the way they achieve this is largely through the fact that the enemies have their own agendas, and the player is often not their first priority. I also talk about how this recontextualised my encounters with these enemies in the future, helping add a subtle level of depth to the world making them feel lived in and the enemies feel like creatures with personalities. I argue that this focus on the indifference of the world to the player's presence is inherently more interesting than the sadistic focus on the player that 2 asserts.

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Patreon:   / writingongames  

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Thank you so much for watching! As I state at the start of the video, the generosity shown towards the Patreon campaign so far has been absolutely astounding - I honestly never expected it to do anything, let alone get to the level it's at. It's already met its first goal, meaning the channel no longer has any ads! If you feel like you're taking something positive from the show, then if you'd consider pitching in I would be eternally grateful. If not, that is totally totally cool - no content will be locked out from you. I'm not going anywhere.   / writingongames  

I also have a lot of ideas on how to get more content out there whilst maintaining a level of quality that I can stand by, so stay tuned for that I guess!

Thank you SO SO SO much for all your support!