Dark Souls: A Four Game Saga?

Dark Souls tells us a story of a world dying because of one man’s wish to live. Dark Souls II tells us of a curse, but also of a war that brewed between man and Giant. Dark Souls III tells us the story of a royal family divided by belief, one Pontiff’s malicious reign over the land, and the end of the world as we know it? Did it just become a thing to add a subplot to every game, or was Dark Souls III meant to actually be two separate games?

Well, I say “meant” but I have no real idea if Miyazaki, the creator, actually had intention of splitting the story of Dark Souls III. I’ve discussed this before but I feel that Dark Souls III could easily have been two different games, with Dark Souls III focusing on Aldrich and the Deep, and Dark Souls IV focusing on Lothric and the end of the world, since nobody came to link the fire.

It’d be an interesting pattern to go off of, too. Dark Souls and Dark Souls II focus on two exclusively different areas with some overlap, such as the return of some key items and someone inhabiting Ornstein’s armor. Thus, you could follow a pattern: Dark Souls III would focus on returning to certain parts of Lordran (like the battle against Aldrich) while also exploring new areas that have come up over the aeosn while Dark Souls IV, much like the second installment, would focus on a new area to showcase how the end wasn’t coming just for Lordran, but for the entire world. 

To differentiate, too, each game could have a subtitle, minus the first one. Dark Souls would remain, but Dark Souls II could be Dark Souls II: Giant Souls, Dark Souls III: Deep Souls, and Dark Souls IV: End Souls, signaling how this is the final game in the saga, since it does reach a natural conclusion by the end of the game, and The Ringed City looks to put a nail in the Dark Souls coffin, as it basically looks like there is no semblance of the First Flame left in the world.

Dark Souls II packs a lot of content in, with the war between humans and giants as well as the matter of the Undead Curse, but there’s also material with the Dragons. I’d suggest axing that. The Dragons are meant to be extinct, incredibly rare, or basically housed up in Archdragon Peak. Having them abundantly in Dark Souls II cheapens the effect, a bit, of seeing them around in later game. It makes the intro to Dark Souls a little weaker.

But now we get to the original Dark Souls III and just how much content From Software managed to pack into the game. Granted, most of it is left unresolved. The closest we get is finishing off the Lothric line, but we still don’t know much about Gertrude, the angels, the pillars of Lothric, where the Queen of Lothric went. These are things we can speculate on, but there’s more minute detail put into the story in the middle of the game, the story of the Pontiff and Aldrich, than there seems to be for the main reason we’re going through the kingdom.

Now, one could make the argument to reverse the order I’ve placed the divided game into. It’s possibly to put Dark Sous IV: End Souls in front of Dark Souls III: Deep Souls if there is to be one great risk: tying the Deep into the lore of Bloodborne. We’ll get into that in a moment.

I prefer to see the Deep as less open and shut and leave the truth of it all in the air, much like our understanding of the Abyss and how it relates to humanity. We have enough to go on and make educated guesses, but not enough to make any solid conclusions about what an Age of Dark would actually mean. The Age of Deep is a similar circumstance. Our knowledge of the Deep has been tainted since the Deacons got involved and began to distort history a bit to try and sync it up with what they know.

Making this is the focus of the third game allows us to learn about a third path for the world beyond just the Age of Fire or Age of Dark. Now, when we go to link the Fire at the Kiln in this game, leaving the flame may also lead to an Age of Dark.

Aldrich believed that he had the power to usher in the Age of Deep because he was absorbing Gods and Godlings. If the Player were to become something of the Pontiff, could they then have the power to usher in the Deep? Dark Souls III: Deep Souls should be similar to the first game in that regardless of whatever choice you pick, the world continues on. Thus, if there were to be an ending regarding sending the world toward an Age of Deep, those repercussions could be seen in Dark Souls IV: End Souls. The Deep could spread or perhaps remnants of the religion could still be around, desperately clinging to that hope that the Deep will come. Evangelists can be remodeled and sent to Lothric in an attempt to sway his mind, like how the Pilgrims were also sent by Londor to try and make him the Lord of Hollows.

Dark Souls III: Deep Souls would explore much of what the main game of Dark Souls III did. We would get more of the Profaned Flame, like actually learning what the heck it is, since it plays into the story of the Pontiff. There wouldn’t need to be too much resolution for story elements of Dark Souls since those were pretty much all sealed up. Siegward would be a primary NPC since his story ties into Yhorm and I think Yorshka would factor in much more, as she would be the thing that majorly foreshadows that something has gone wrong with Gwyndolin.

While Dark Souls III: Deep Souls mirrors the first game in terms of location, it could also mirror the first game narratively. There are two major Outrider Knights we’re meant to defeat, and only by defeating them can we access Anor Londo, where the Pontiff is. Only, it’s not Anor Londo, it’s Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. Perhaps we don’t fight the Pontiff in the same location we do in the original game, but perhaps one of his servants or Archdeacon Royce, who uses the power of the Deep to gain massive power (since the Aldrich Faithful covenant would be much more prominent in the early game to establish Aldrich as the final boss with his own covenant). Then you continue on into the Cathedral and discover Pontiff Sulyvahn has taken the place of Ornstein and Smough and awaits you as a trap, since the Player thinks they’ll find Aldrich. From there the game can open up a bit more as we explore Pontiff’s past, giving us a look into the Painted World of Ariandel, the Profaned Capital, and Irithyll Dungeon to see just what the heck was going on down there.

There’d be a bunch of new areas, too, because you would need to replace basically the entire endgame of Dark Souls III and much of the early game, since Vordt only has a loose connection to the High Wall of Lothric.

One could place Pontiff in the same place he is now but frontload the early game and make it so the Player has to get through all of the Outrider Knights to be “worthy” of facing the Pontiff before going on to face a weaker Aldrich, who flees and then you face him again in his own area, maybe having to go back to the Cathedral where the Player fights the Deacons of the Deep, to fight him in his own turf and away from Anor Londo, where he assumes various different godlike forms, perhaps various Gods that have been hinted at throughout Dark Souls and Dark Souls II. Defeating him opens the game up to the Kiln of the First Flame where the Player makes the ultimate choice.

Deep magic would feature majorly in Dark Souls III and I think the Undead Curse would still be around, but wouldn’t be as prominent a role. The Player doesn’t go mad while they Hollow is what I’m getting at, since the Undead Curse is a bit strained. There’s even a possibility here to explore the reaches of the Deep and return to other old areas of Dark Souls, like turning the Duke’s Archives from Seath’s library into a place of heretical studies on the Deep.

Dark Souls IV: End Souls is essentially the linear plot of the Lothric bloodline. Sadly, it would be a weaker entry to the series, since this plot thread is rather simplistic based on what we know. Expanding on the lore of the angels and Gertrude, and Rosaria’s fingers and other NPCs, could help make the game a bit more interesting, but those kind of don’t warrant their own major questlines. This game could help make Oceirosthe main villain that he should’ve been in Dark Souls III if we’re to follow the logic of him going absolutely bonkers, and this Dark Souls IV would also shed light on some big mysteries of the series. Untended Graves would be a much larger area to explore the true reaches of the Firelink Shrine within Lothric as well as what it means for the Lothric family to have the building so close to them.

More would be gleamed on the role that the Primordial Serpents play in Lothric. Londor would have its own small area to explored in for DLC, like how Darkroot Garden and Oolacile were connected in the Artorias DLC. Many of the confusing plot elements of Dark Souls III, minus the Profaned Flame, would finally be explored a bit more in-depth. Obviously there shouldn’t be clear-cut answers to all of these things. Untended Graves would be larger but wouldn’t give more explicit answers, just some more hints to the truth of the world. It also wouldn’t be an optional area, but rather a place the player must traverse in order to reach the Kiln of the First Flame, which is now engulfed by the Abyss.

Having the Abyss as the true enemy behind everything, and the Soul of Cinder waiting for you, adds so many interesting theories to the table. Is the Soul of Cinder going mad and wants to kill you because of this? Is he just proving your worth, to let you absorb him and make the Flame stronger? In the original game, his appearance is more as a heartfelt goodbye to the series, but here it’s once more an act of desperation to stop the Abyss from spreading even more. This also lends credence to the idea that the Unkindled has gone mad. There are so many things that could happen and so many things that weigh on them; now that they’ve reached the First Flame, the decision is overwhelming. What to do?

There wouldn’t be too many areas that need to be added if you make Londor one large area somewhat connected to Lothric, and if you get to explore areas around Lothric Castle that are similar to the Undead Settlement, but show more of the decay of the world as a result of the Abyss and the Deep spreading.

Dark Souls III as it stands is a bit too jam-packed. The game is still good, overall, but the narrative tends to be all over the place. The Player is quite literally yanked away from whatever subplot they were on when they defeat the final Lord of Cinder before the Twin Princes to go back to the High Wall of Lothric. Seems a bit much if you ask me. That doesn’t happen when you defeat Ornstein and Smough; the gates just open up and you’re tasked with finding them is all!

Dark Souls II is a little less of a mess in terms of the narrative but still requires a bit of touching up and editing. If we follow Scholar of the First Sin then the game really works quite fine.

Some have even proposed that the games are best as standalone games, which could also work. You would just have to remove the “Dark Souls” in the title for the remaining three games to have Giant Souls, Deep Souls, and probably changed End Souls to Ashen Souls. The fixes for Deep Souls are simple enough: just allude to previous games and build a new hierarchy of Gods for Aldrich to devour and remove any areas from Dark Souls.

Deep Souls runs the biggest risk, though, since the concept of the Deep is similar to the Water Hamlet of Bloodborne’s DLC. I personally don’t think they’re connected, since Dark Souls follows a multiversal timeline (invading other worlds for NPC quests) soBloodborne might share similarities, but it isn’t what the world we see will eventually become. Keep in mind that this is all before the Age of Humanity, and Bloodborne is based in Victorian times. There’s still a long way to go for those two to be connected, meaning the Age of Deep also somehow connects to Age of Dark. It’s a difficult thread to follow all the way.

It’s difficult to say what Dark Souls would have looked like as a four-part saga, or as four standalone stories. Would it have been better, or worse? Some like the disconnect of Dark Souls to Dark Souls II and others are still struggling to tether the two together. Some are all in for the references to Dark Souls from Dark Souls III and some are put off from all of it. The Nameless King is a great edition, some think, while others are just fine without ever knowing who Gwyn’s firstborn really is.

As it stands, and even if there were another game to come out, the overall narrative of Dark Souls is quite simple: There was everything and nothing, then there was life and death. What comes after? Well that’s the great mystery of the world, isn’t it?