The Difficulty of Dark Souls III Should Be “Well, That Escalated Quickly”

The most dreadful aspect of any Souls game is not having played a Souls game for a while. FromSoftware games have a particular orbit, a particular understanding that you need to learn before you can overcome its notoriously challenging levels and bosses. And it will become immediately evident in the first moments of starting Dark Souls III whether you are at all rusty. In fact, Dark Souls III assumes that you've already played Bloodborne or another Souls game, as its difficulty escalates quickly right from the start.

Upon awakening in the Cemetery of Ash, your chosen character will rise from the grave in pursuit of the Lords of Cinder who have retreated and burrowed themselves in the corners of the land. All you get as a refresher in combat is a couple of small environments with fixed messages on the ground telling you the controls, which is the equivalent of "Did you get all of that? No? Well, too bad." Go down one path to the side of the tutorial area, mind you, and you'll face off against a crystal beast that you obviously aren't supposed to face yet.

Being that I have plenty of experience with the Souls franchise, I knew how to circle strafe and hold my shield properly, but peering over at the screens of the other writers in attendance at a private Dark Souls III event in San Francisco, I could see plenty of "You Died" screens right in the opening minutes of the game. That includes me, of course. I may not have died against the crystal beast, but I died twice trying to defeat the giant boss at the end of first section, another time along the path to Firelink Shrine because of a katana-wielding mini-boss, and yet another time inside the shrine itself because I wanted to slay an innocent wanderer in that cruel, cruel Dark Souls way.

That wasn't even the worst of it. Just a few steps after evading the dragon's fire in the High Wall of Lothric, the first real area of the demo, a tall knight with a sword and shield walked out from a parapet. Really? A knight this early in the game? I'm not sure how many times I died against the bastard. (My best guess is six times.) Get up too close and he'll bash you with his shield, wait too long and he'll swipe you three times, block too much and he'll crush your guard. It took a while to figure out when to strike, forward-roll to evade, and safely take a swig of an estus flask—even now, I'm not sure how to defeat the knight safely.

So I was floored when, near the end of the area, I found three knights patrolling the gardens: two with spears and one with a sword. I pretty much wanted to drop my controller right then and there. I don't smoke but that would have been the perfect time. With the very last drop of estus flask, I was able to kill all three somehow… until I saw what looked like a NPC staring at an unusual gravestone but then turned around to reveal its two bright red eyes and promptly killed me with a single swipe. Where's that cigarette? By the end of the demo, I was able to defeat an ice-breathing bull-like boss at the end of the level, but I wasn't able to make it to the next area since I was out of time.

Luckily, Dark Souls III appeared once more at the Xbox Spring Showcase event, and I had to chance to make amends. And as it is with the Souls series, there's nothing more helpful than experiencing the game once before. I breezed through the early sections of the game, in part because I switched my class from the herald which has a slower spear to a swordsman with faster speed, and in part because I knew where all the drops were for titanite shards and other upgrade materials. By the time I killed the ice-breathing boss in my second playthrough and reached the Undead Settlement, the new area in the demo, I had a Raw Longsword +2 and enough stats in physical strength to slay almost anything in two quick swipes.

The Undead Settlement, by the way, is a twisted village something straight out of a Berserk manga: lanky farmers with pitchforks, steel cages with skinned corpses, broken wooden staircases, big-ass rats, and swaying body bags strung up by ropes. Just the thought of touching anything might give you a disease. At the end of the level, a gargantuan, cursed piece of wood that looks like a mutated Ent will attempt to squash you with its rotten rump. I was able to whittle it down by breaking its flimsy limbs.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to kill it in time since the event was ending, but hey, that's just more information for when I finally get a hold of the final review build for Dark Souls III. It will release on April 12, 2016 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.