Last week, I started the endeavor of analyzing the
massive tonal shift that occurs in Dark Souls’ first half. Either because dissecting
half of an entire game is too big of a feat to accomplish in one week or
because I’m too wordy to be able to do anything concisely (hard to tell which),
it ended up becoming a two part analysis. Earlier, I covered the mood the game
sets up in its first act (which you can find here, if you missed it),
and now we’ll be taking a look at the second act and how the tone changes
considerably. Without any further ado, let’s dive in.
Just
as a recap, the first act of Dark Souls (from the start until the first Bell of
Awakening), is all designed to make the player feel accomplished. You ascend
through a series of easily navigated areas while fighting traditional fantasy
themed enemies and meeting friendly faces. The bell you need to ring rests atop
a giant tower where you can look down upon all you just conquered and feel
accomplished. And so the analysis today picks up right after this big moment of
achievement for the player.
Now
that you’ve finally accomplished half of your goal, it’s time for the long
awaited change. One bell was up, and now the other is down, very far down. This
is where things take a turn for the worse as your journey will now take you
through treacherous and intense areas with brutal challenge and mental strain. It’s
almost a test of sorts to see if you’re truly ready to take on the rest of the
game. First, there’s the Lower Undead Burg, a small alley deep beneath the
Undead Burg, the game’s first area. To reach it, you have to climb down a
seemingly never-ending ladder, an ominous sign of the further descent ahead.
The lower Burg is a lot less hospitable than its upper counterpart.
Aggressively fast dogs greet you as you step down into a narrow alley full of
piles of flaming trash. Traveling further, you find ambushes of thieves that
can quickly wipe out an unprepared traveler, bursting out of closed doors. At
the end lies the Capra Demon, a tricky boss infamous for how frustrating it can
be. The lower Burg sets players up for what’s to come and instills a sense of
dread. It sends a clear message that you’re travelling to a land full of
immense danger and the constant ambushes and cramped, narrow atmosphere fosters
a growing sense of anxiety in the player. Every corner could be a trap, every
nook or seemingly closed door, and you must fearfully crawl inch-by-inch
through the area to avoid death.
Killing
the Capra Demon gives you access to the Depths, the next area on your quest for
the second bell, and gives you access to your final shortcut back to Firelink
on this mad descent. It connects Firelink to the entrance of the Depths, but
after that you’re on your own in the treacherous and frightening unknown, with
nowhere to go but down. The Depths begins to introduce new frights that stray
from your humanoid designs and fantasy tropes. No longer are things familiar,
but instead alien and monstrous. There are slimes that drop from the ceiling,
landing on your face to deal massive damage, weird frog creatures that shoot a
gas capable of inflicting a debuff to half your max HP, and butchers who wield
massive cleavers. All of these enemies are designed to unsettle the player in
some way, preying on innate fears. Slimes hide almost invisible on the ceiling acting
like mechanical jump scares, and the unnatural frog creatures prey on your
mechanical fear of losing max health, and the butchers take advantage of a
natural human fear of being sliced and diced up. While none of these enemies
actually do anything gruesome, simply their association with things we fear is
enough to make them inherently unsettling.
The
environment of the Depths is something to take note of too. While the lower
Burg was a little cramped, the Depths are claustrophobic and arranged like a
maze. To add to this feeling, once you’ve been ambushed by your first slime,
the area becomes a nightmare of stress. The ceiling in every hallway must be
checked, and double checked, for any slime that could be hiding on it, because
they pose an immense threat. Strange, gross goo lines the walls, and the tight
corridors often house hidden pits that can drop you into a confusing labyrinth
below if you’re not paying attention. The Depths have to be taken at a crawl, which
makes them the tensest area yet. The worst part of all of this however, may be
the lack of bonfires. In the Burg and Parish, you could find bonfires or
shortcuts back to ones relatively plentifully. The entirety of the Depths has
one bonfire in it, and in order to access it, you need to first defeat the
giant rat miniboss that resides at the halfway point, find a nearby key, and
then backtrack to a locked door to unlock the bonfire. This means one slip-up
could void all the slow and stressful progress you’ve already made, furthering
the already tense atmosphere. Truly deviously, however, this bonfire provides
no real relief. It is at first relieving to find, but it’s not connected to any
safe zones. It is smack in the middle of the Depths and trying to backtrack to
get out will be just as hard as heading deeper. This deep and dark journey down
is one where you’re stuck and have no choice but to press on.
The
grotesque cherry on top of the unsavory fruitcake that is the Depths is the
area’s boss. The Gaping Dragon is the one thing in Dark Souls that goes beyond
just being unsettling and can be a little nightmare fuel. It’s a massive
monstrosity that’s designed once again with a human fear in mind, and crafted
to not be reminiscent of anything a player might be familiar with. It’s a
dragon so convoluted by hunger that its entire ribcage morphed into a giant
mouth, with rows and rows of (somehow squirming) teeth. Even though the boss is
one of the easiest in the game, it still fulfills its purpose of being disturbing.
The entire thing is so large that your sprint barely outruns its slow walk. The
beast’s primary attack is it slamming down its gaping maw before charging. No
one would want to get caught in its convoluted mouth when it slams down, giving
the whole battle this feeling of dread as you run to avoid being crushed. A
creature composed almost entirely of a mouth is something naturally frightening
to us as humans, things that very much do not want to be eaten. And here, we
must fight one in the bottom of a claustrophobic, stressful, and unsettling
sewer.
Once
the dragon has been felled, new players may be expecting to find their next
bell here. After all, they have traveled far, and they had beaten two bosses
now, the same number it took to get the first bell. Not to mention, they did
just reach the bottom of an area called “the Depths”, which certainly must be
the deepest and darkest part of the map. But nope. After defeating the Gaping
Dragon, all you receive is a “Key to Blighttown.” Just now you’re reaching the
area that you were told contains the bell. And when you open the door to
Blighttown, all you see is a giant well in the ground, with a ladder leading
further down.
Blighttown
is an area almost universally hated by players, and while at first on console
it was plagued by terrible framerate issues, I believe it’s more the design of
the area itself that makes players hate it, and I also believe that’s exactly
what the developers wanted. Blighttown is where all hope truly comes to die,
where players get lost so far down under the surface they have no hope of
coming back the way they came, and where everything familiar is thrown out the
window.
To
start, the entire top half of the area takes place on rickety wooden platforms
over a bottomless drop with a death plane. You fall off, and that’s it,
whatever progress you had made, it’s now gone. Cleverly, the developers made it
so no wood platform is perfectly flat. All of them exist on some slightly off
angle. None of this affects player movement, but the feeling of offness and
instability that comes when none of the ground you’re on is truly flat is
amazing. Just about every man-made structure that exists now is based off 90
degree angles, and an entire area that lacks any kind of perpendicular angle
feels surprisingly wrong. The area is also arranged like a vertical maze where,
surprise, your goal is to go down, but you’re just as likely to find your way
following the main path as you are by jumping down to nearby platforms that
look safe. The journey is grueling too, with the upper half only having one
bonfire midway down. And with the previous bonfire being in the middle of the Depths,
you have a long slog to make it back to where you left off if you die, making
the stakes incredibly high.
The
area is full of unsettling and dangerous enemies to fight to boot, and all of
them new and very different from what you’ve been fighting before. There are
massive, sluggish barbarian brutes who swing at you with high damage clubs and
risk knocking off to instant death. They aren’t plentiful, but their scarcity
makes each encounter with them feel like a serious risk. There are fast
deformed humanoids who wield a variety of trash pieces as a weapon. They’re
inherently frightening with their fast speed which works well with their
tendency to ambush. Not to mention the entire area is dark and shadowy, making
it even harder to tell what could be waiting just ahead. Most cruel of all
however, are the toxic dart shooters. They’re snipers who pelt you with darts
that build up the toxic status effect, which is a much deadlier version of the
poison effect that was introduced earlier in the game. It can easily remove
your entire health bar or use your entire supply of healing items if you don’t
have an ample supply of the rare item that cures toxic. Luckily they stay dead
once killed and don’t respawn ever, but they once again are a threat that can
end a player rapidly, and so you must move through the area slowly, tensely,
and carefully to deal with them.
The
bonfire in the middle of upper Blighttown may seem like a blessing, but it
serves as a real reminder of how far lost you are. With this are your spawn
point, even if you die you are still stuck deep in Blighttown. If you want to
get even to the Depths, you’ll have to backtrack through the maze-like
nightmare you just descended. Level design back in the upper world made it so
you could access all different parts of areas pretty quickly with shortcuts so
it all felt like one interconnected block. But the utter lack of shortcuts down
below makes it feel like one long trek with no escape. Beyond the bonfire lies
a slew of even more dangerous enemies: fire-breathing dogs, infinitely spawning
mosquitos, and crab-spider-fly amalgamations that breath fire. These new enemies
further add to this unsettling and frightening environment, with the spider
monsters being that combination of familiar-but-not-quite-right to make you
feel slightly disturbed, and the mosquitos that never stop spawning just make
you annoyed, further adding to the terribly bleak atmosphere.
What
waits at the bottom of Blighttown isn’t very friendly either, however. The
bottom of the area is a massive poison swamp with giant dead trees emerging out
the middle. The swamp houses a bonfire that gives you safety and saves your
progress to the end of the area, but once again cements the fact there is no
going back. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck down in this poisonous
hole. Simply travelling the swamp is a chore as it slows your movement speed to
a halt and turns your rolls into a clunky mess, and the mosquitos keep spawning
to bother you, plus the swamp builds up a poison status effect which slowly
drains your health long after you have left. Not as bad as wooden platform
mazes of instant death, sure, but even at the end of your journey there is
still no hospitable place to stay, a large contrast to the blacksmith tower at
the end of the Undead Parish.
In
the vast swamp, there is one landmark that will likely catch your eye: a large
white mound built into the side of one wall. Upon closer inspection, it turns
out to be made entirely of spider webs. Just when you thought things couldn’t
get any worse, humanity’s worst fear is brought into play: spiders. Luckily
there are no spider enemies to be found in the short tunnel that leads to the
boss inside this webby compound, but finding a giant den of spiders nestled
deep underground will make almost anyone hesitant of what may come next. The
boss, Quelagg, is a half-woman half-spider hybrid who, while strange, is
nothing like the disturbing abomination that was the gaping dragon. Once
bested, the player is able to progress and at long last ring the second bell of
awakening. Unlike the first bell, the second one is in a cramped little cavern,
you don’t get the satisfaction of looking back over all you conquered the first
bell gave you. But at least the terrible descent is at last, over.
Or
is it? Many players after ringing the second bell think they have to travel
still further down. Even though the ringing of the second bell shows a cutscene
of fortress gate in a previous area being opened, there is still a path leading
down from the second bell and some players think they must still travel
further. What lies below is a massive lake of lava titled the “Demon Ruins”,
with a nearby boss that looks like a misshapen, deformed giant humanoid made
from magma. And at this point in the game, the only three “demons” you have
faced have been two of the most treacherous bosses you have faced up until this
point. So an area with the word “demon” in the title, this must be a truly
terrible area if it is the home of demons. But an insane difficulty wall with
the boss, and the intense difficulty of enemies past the boss should prevent
players from heading down this path. What it does do, however, is show players
that there’s even more treachery waiting beyond, and below, Blighttown, and
that someday you will have to return back down here.
After
ringing your second bell, and realizing you are finally free from this land,
you get a massive sense of relief... for a moment. Then you realize to get back
to the hub of Firelink and to proceed, you have to find your way out of the
depths of the world. Which most likely means backtracking through the massively
long nightmare you progressed through to reach this place. Luckily, there is
another way. Giant waterwheels across from the boss area can take you up high
to a new path at the top of Blighttown, where you climb a whole horde of ladders,
anticipating perhaps nearby freedom. Fighting (or running past) three final
barbarian brutes leads you to the outdoors. And there a nearby path leads you
to an eventual shortcut back to Firelink. At this point, having finally
conquered both bells, making your way through the bleakest depths of the world,
and finally reaching freedom and the outside after hours of being confined in
tense darkness, it is a major moment. Not only is the feeling of relief
immense, but you feel triumphant. At this point you should be ready for the
rest of the game. You went to the nightmarish bottom of the world and back,
you’re ready to take on whatever is to come.
That
is how the dramatic shift in tone from the first bell to the second prepare
players for the rest of the game. Once you’ve conquered Blighttown, you should
be able to take on the rest of the game. Even though it will be way harder, it
proves you can conquer whatever curveballs will come your way. And even without
the sense of triumph that comes from it, the immense change in tone is a game
design feat worth examining anyways. The developers use everything, from level
design, to area geometry, to shortcuts, to enemy design, to ambushes, to
verticality to make the descent down through the Depths and into Blighttown
incredibly tense and bleak. I hope after all of this, you have a better sense
of the subconscious things games can do to manipulate our emotions.
Key
Takeaways:
- Travelling up subconsciously makes a player feel accomplishment, while travelling down subconsciously makes them feel dread
- An interconnected level with shortcuts and easy access to safe points can make a player feel safe and in control, but a disconnected level without shortcuts or ways out make a player feel frightened and lost
- If you want a player to be tense and scared, make them fear every wall, corner, ceiling, and floor with the potential of hidden traps that can only be thwarted by careful observation
- The key to designing enemies that truly disturb is to take something people fear, like being eaten, and design the enemy around that, or making something in the uncanny valley, that falls close to what they are familiar with, but feels slightly off
- Geometry that doesn’t follow the typical 90 degree angles we are used to works wonders in making an environment feel off.
- Areas that are treacherous, bleak, and stressful must have some kind of payoff. If you just torture your player relentlessly, they won’t want to continue on. The moment of triumphantly obtaining freedom from the long prison of descent is the payoff that makes the entire lower Burg to Depths to Blighttown journey worth it.
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