That's much of its allure, to a certain subset of players, so much so that the promotional slogan for the games has often been 'Prepare to Die.' This is the typical narrative you hear about Dark Souls: that it's good because of the satisfaction that comes from managing insane levels of challenge. The Dark Souls series never makes anything easy.
The whole time, I'm asking myself, in the back of my head: why bother? Why have I ever bothered? With only the vaguest motive in mind, I push forward and gather the necessary strength to win. I get stronger struggling against a boss I don't care about fighting. I dig into a character I haven't touched in months, prodding horrors I've already conquered and moved past. If you don't have a save file progressed enough to access the new stuff you just bought, you'd better get to playing. Unlike most games, the expansions to Dark Souls titles aren't additional, isolated new bits of game-they're embedded directly into the world as it already exists. Before I begin The Ringed City, the final downloadable expansion for From Software's existentialist fantasy epic Dark Souls 3, I have to prepare.
