World Building – Video Games, Stories and Dark Souls

So I’ve been playing a lot of Dark Souls 3 as of late. The games, as some may know, have a ton of lore hidden beneath the surface. Somebody who just plays the game, fights the bosses and goes along the usual path won’t find much, and may find the story to be rather simple, even confusing in some aspects.

Dig a bit, explore a bit, and pay attention, and you’ll notice that From Software, the creators, have actually put a lot of detail into the world. From easy to check item descriptions, to character dialogue, to small environmental clues, so many stories and clues are within the game. While From Software doesn’t confirm too many things, there are many people who investigate and try to form links.

(If you want to dig a bit and learn, VaatiVidya is a great YouTuber who does videos on this topic.)

This got me thinking on the topics of world building, and the differences between it in video games, and in media like text and movies.

I’ll continue this in my next post, my brain just kind of blanked and I can’t remember the points I wanted to raise.