Download Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for PC

Into the Fire

In the first serious playthrough I did of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, I learned that taking a shortcut was like asking to die, that a peaceful corridor was suddenly anything but, and that even a known enemy could demolish me if I made a mistake. Those were the things that kept pulling me back, because every death was a lesson.

Features of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is an action role-playing game set in a dark fantasy universe. You will create a custom character and select a starting class, acquire gear, assign attributes and slowly get to learn what the environment has to offer. There is very little hand-holding here, with environments that sometimes connect in unexpected ways, shortcuts that will switch up the feel of a zone entirely and discoveries that will have relevance much later.

Then we’ve got the bosses. Some are a test of who can wait out who, and some require snappy reactions and pattern recognition. I think that’s where the game has its soul, where you aren’t just making your stats better, you’re learning how to read the events in front of you. The edition also features the Artorias of the Abyss content, which adds more zones, characters, foes, gear, and bosses to the game, and yes, it gets dirty.

How the Adventure Actually Works

At its essence, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is about exploration, combat, character development and rinse and repeat. You start off by creating a character and choosing a class that will determine your starting gear and starting equipment. Then you can start investing in attributes such as strength, dexterity, endurance, vitality, intelligence, faith and any other important stats for the build you’re trying.

Put more emphasis on the combat than button mashing. There’s stamina to be spent, there are repercussions from blocking, there’s positioning when trying to evade and huge swings can leave you completely exposed. I found I was better off tracking enemies rather than frenziedly charging at them. All enemies give you souls when killed which become your currency and a way to level up your character, but lose ’em before you retrieve ’em and they’re gone.

That rule can make a walk through an unremarkable area unexpectedly stressful. The bonfires are little moments of respite. They’re a checkpoint, a place to tend to your character, but rest also revives a huge number of defeated foes. That’s a shrewd exchange – healing isn’t an automatic step forward. The game’s exploration has a similar mindset. Lordran is not designed like a string of discrete levels. Corridors double back, once-locked doors open, elevators open new paths, places that appeared to be far away can suddenly be accessed right next door to where you were before. Seriously, that level design is still one of my favorite things.

Key Features

• Combat-centric dark fantasy action RPG that emphasizes combat, exploration and character progression
• Design with shortcuts, passages, mysteriously related routes, and impenetrablepathways…
• Creating characters with different starting classes and development options
• Wide variety of various weapons, armor, shield, rings, spells and other equipment
• Boss fight that requires multiple boss phases and occasional to hard dodging/balancing of their attack.
• Soul system for developing characters and buying gear or supplies.
• Bonfires that offer not only locations to rejoin the path but also crucial moments to ready oneself for another trip.
• A series of three difficult boss battles designed around specific attack techniques and combat mechanics
• Artorias of the Abyss with more areas, enemies, characters, bosses, and gear
• Single player progression with modern online-style features woven into the adventure
• Achievements available through the Steam version
• A dreary motif of fallen architecture, perilous beasts, mysterious characters and environmental storytelling.

Why I Keep Coming Back

The best part of the game is how it respects how you learn: It doesn’t spell out everything you’re supposed to do, the way so many modern games do. You try. You die. You remember. And then you try again with a better plan. That may sound tedious, but it results in some kind of odd feeling of achievement: When I finally took down the enemy who’d been slaughtering me for an hour, I got more than just loot and experience. I understood the fight. And the shared map helps as well. When you find the shortcut, the area that felt huge an hour ago suddenly feels like you can see a path through. That door that was totally useless five hours ago starts to look like a quick run back through a quite hazardous corridor.

Equipment comes in too. Various weapons have different characteristics, different armor give you different styles of attack and defence, and your stats encourage a different sort of character. And because resources matter, even everyday interactions remain compelling. I think I really like the atmospheric state without having the game constantly throw scary at you. Everything has an abandoned, broken, and oddly old feeling to it; conversations with NPC’s can be confusing, item descriptions can offer glimpses into the setting, and the environments have plenty of their own story to tell; maybe you’ll figure it out. Maybe.

Ways Players Use the Game

• Create a melee-optimized class that builds to an ability score of either STR, DEX, or combined.
• Play around with the magic, miracles, weapons, shields, and gear combinations
• Discover Lordran as you seek shortcuts, hidden rooms, items and optional encounters
• “Dos and don’ts of boss fights” practice boss patterns and progress through multiple attempts.
• Replay the game with a character build entirely.
• Access the Artorias of the Abyss content once you have defeated the main quest
• Scour for Exotic Weapons, Armor Pieces, Rings, Spells, and Other Collectibles
• Experiment with different combat styles on the same boss or enemy.
• Journey across the planet for clues and fragments of the worlds carefully constructed mysteries.
• Oust difficulty and do extra tricks the second time around

One More Journey Through Lordran

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition This is not a game I recommend playing with the goal of merely hurrying through it. That’s generally missing the point. Relax. Observe the behavior of enemies. Explore the edge of your vision. Develop a feel for your stuff. And when it robs you of life, discover what it is. That’s where the magic is.

Combat is impactful, the world tempts curiosity, and the upgrade system offers more than enough freedom to build your own character. You can understand a zone better and still fall victim to that one reckless move that spoils a smooth sailing in the game and sends you back to the last fire you lit. But when everything finally falls into place, nothing is quite as satisfying. Lordran is hostile, unfamiliar and arguably cruel. But that is, in part, why surviving it feels worth it.