I guess I mean more of the first Dark Souls, since from what I understand, two isn't as connected, though if it does somehow connect to two, I'm interested to know. The thing is though, and sorry to ruin some of the fun, but please don't spoil it here. I am just now getting into two, so the answers to questions isn't really what I want to know, I just want to know if the game does a good job at giving you answers, and is it to subjects that you found interesting? The stories in these games, from how I perceive them, is not easy to understand just based off the game, so reading up on lore is quite important if you want to get into it. I don't necessarily have questions I want/need answering right now, but there must be some resolution, as well as perhaps more questions brought up, since Dark Souls 3 is in the same universe.

I find the lore to be really interesting, but the fact that I find out way more just by reading about it, than hearing NPC's talk to me is kind of a bummer. I feel like I either paid not nearly enough attention, or the game really isn't overt in its storytelling. It can make the games feel like their story is super basic compared to what it actually is. I wish I knew the story behind who I was fighting, and the places I visited beforehand in the detail that's really behind them. This may be a tricky subject to give me anything worth saying, so sorry, but I hope I can get some answers. I'm also curious, just from a basic level, how does Dark Souls 3's story exist? What does it consist of, because going through Dark Souls felt like finishing up the story of that world already.

And finally, how does Dark Souls 2 fit into it all? It feels like, as far as I know so far, that it's just on the same planet, but it's another place (say, on the other side of the planet or something), far away from what occurred in the first Dark Souls; perhaps the third, and it has it's own problems so to speak. I only played a few hours of it so far, and I haven't read/heard much about it, so I have no clue. Finally, how easy was it for you to understand the lore solely based off the game in terms of all the details? You can spoil stuff from the first and second if you want to, but don't go into three, or if you do, put spoiler tags please. Okay, thanks.

There's definitely a thing that was mysterious in the first one that this game...sort of maybe hints at again? I dunno, it definitely has numerous, direct connections to the first game, but not as many to the second. But there are some. You know, it's Dark Souls. It's definitely more direct about game play mechanics, and things like that, but lore? You still gotta dig deep, pay attention, and piece a lot of things together yourself. Know what I mean?

Quite a bit of them are answered, and some left even more mysterious/interesting in typical DS1 fashion. It has some direct connections, and confirms some things especially regarding Gwyn's family, The Painted World, Seath, The Everlasting Dragons, Artorias, Sif, The Abyss, Havel, NPC's from DS1, DS2, The Giants, and much more is explained, or given more exposition.

Oceiros the mad king is Big Hat Logan for example..

@asilentprotagonist: See, I disagree with that because you kill Logan in Dark Souls, if you see that quest through to the end. I think it's more likely that he just discovered Seeth's research like Logan did. And given the time between the games, and the fact that Logan was already quite mad, I just think it's not likely. How would he have become a King? The vibe I got was that Oceiros went mad after becoming a king. I doubt Logan could've pulled all of that off.

Does it hint at, or say how many years apart the games are?

@ntm: It definitely gives the impression that it's been a very long time between each game. Enough for entire kingdoms to rise and fall. I get the feeling this is the sort of world where the time between these games is so enormous that at a certain point time becomes somewhat meaningless.

There are a few cases where Dark Souls 3 directly addresses questions you may have had relating to the past entries in the series, but most of the time the game is simply expanding on the lore of that universe, opening up some more questions and shedding light on how the events preceding and during the original Dark Souls affected the nature of that world.

@mooseymcman: I heard there are places people visited, and it looked a lot like what they saw in the first, but weren't sure. That sound interesting. Is there a vibe that you venture to places you did in the first?

@ntm: I'm not going to say, because I don't want to spoil anything, and I don't want to outright lie to mislead, one way or the other. If/when you play Dark Souls III, you will see.

By that logic Gwyndolin shouldn't be in the game. Aldrich imprisoned him, and devoured him over time.You kill him in DS1 too. Some of the stuff is a little murky on whats canon, and whats not. Lots of kings in DS1, DS2 lore including the lion king were "mad" during their reign. He also wields Logan's one of a kind staff. It could be him, or Logan's successor. I'm leaning on it being Logan. Undead can live for a long time as we see with Andre.

@asilentprotagonist: I would counter by saying that Gwyndolin is a child of Gwyn, and thus probably immortal? Or at least close to it, whereas Logan was just another undead. But, really, it's the going from being a mad sorcerer to a king that seems unlikely to me. I think it's way more likely that Oceiros found Seeth's place, and from there took the research and Logan's staff.

There's certainly some questions that get more of an answer, and characters whose backstories and connections are made a little clearer.

But they also don't fully answer much - as you'd expect from that series. Plenty of questions remain, and much of the finer details are left to the players' imaginations.

@asilentprotagonist@mooseymcman For me one of the most interesting links is Gwynevere seemingly being the Queen of Lothric. The DS1 and DS3 descriptions of Divine Blessing are too similar to be coincidental. That would make her the partner of Oceiros. They actually fill a fair chunk of missing details from DS1 in particular, but there's a pleasing amount left to be speculated on.

@y2ken: Honestly, for my money, if we're talking about Gwyn's kids, the most interesting theory I've seen is that The Nameless King is the mysterious unknown last son of Gwyn. The one that was removed from the annals of history, statues destroyed, etc. Betraying his father to side with the dragons would certainly be a thing to make Gwyn angry enough to do that.

@mooseymcman: Alright, and yep. I'm definitely going to play it. I bought it yesterday along with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin since I just went through the first Dark Souls and Demon's Souls.

@ntm: Have fun! That's a lot of really excellent video game, right there. And Dark Souls II.

She married Flann tho and had kids with him.

@asilentprotagonist: Big hat and Oceiros are not one and the same. Two item descriptions makes that about as clear as anything in Dark Souls is capable of being. The description for White Dragon Breath states that Oceiros was "edified" by that creation of Old Big Hat's, while Ocerios' soul states that he was someone of royal blood that stumbled upon a group already worshipping Seath, as opposed to one that helped create that worship.

That all said, it is important to note that Dark Souls 3 is less a direct sequel to the events experienced in DkS 1 and 2, and more the future of one of the many permutations of Lordrans past. After all, time and space are both distorted here. Additionally, certain item descriptions are given an almost archaeological degree of unreliability. Seath is called the pale drake, but we know he was in fact a dragon. Similarly, the game refers to it as Drang but we also know its true name is Drangleic.

@asilentprotagonist Gonna have to agree with moosey here. One of the items you can craft from Oceiros' soul refers to Logan and Oceiros as two separate entities. Now that could be how the game implies that Logan went through a change of being to become Oceiros, and I support that sort of theory-crafting, but personally I think they're two different people. To me, Logan's role in this game is that of an old legend passed down through history, influencing many sorcerers after him.

Gonna disagree with you on this too, mainly because of the item description for his soul.

EDIT: Sorry, looks like you've got a lot of this same message while I was typing this up :P

My guess is that Gwynevere is actually Rosaria, Mother of Rebirth, and I think that ties into what you are saying; the mad scramble to produce a holy heir led Oceiros to ever more dark and "unspeakable means" (as referenced in Lothric's ashes) resulting in the corruption of the entire royal family in various ways. My Rosaira = Gwynevere link comes from her soul and the means to get it; you get the Bountiful Sunlight miracle if you transpose it (referenced as "a miracle of Gwynevere"), and Leonhard, who you fight for the soul (and who killed her in the first place), takes the soul to Gwynevere's former chamber and has some very interesting dialog:

Couldn't resist her any longer, in all her festering glory? And now you want to ravage her soul, as well. I sowed the seeds. I'll prune the mess. I, Leonhard, I swear so upon my vows to the goddess. No one will despoil her soul. Certainly no beast wrapped in human skin! Isn't flesh enough for a sick beast?! What do you want with her soul?

and

Well, well, back for more, are you? No ordinary man, are you. I knew it all along. And now you want to ravage her soul, as well.

So, to me that implies that she was corrupted in some way, but her soul remained pure, and Leonhard, worried that he's made you into an insatiable invader (he gives you the cracked eye orbs and the means to get a full one, after all), is attempting to save what little she has left.

@turambar: Well, I feel like some of that might be unreliable for different reasons. Like, the quality of the localization is a little hit or miss in the game. Stuff like weird sentence spacing, capitalization, odd stuff like that. I wouldn't be surprised if "pale drake" and "dragon" were mixed up because of an error, rather than an intentional thing. I know it's kind of an unfortunate thing, and hopefully it is just weird/minor grammar/structure errors, but there's not really any way to know without directly comparing the Japanese to the English. And I'm not really the sort of person to usually bring up translation errors, but they brought it up on the 8-4 Play podcast too, so it's not just me!

Off topic here, but I noticed that Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is T for teen. Why is this the case, when the rest are M? I just find it a bit strange.

Dunno. Viewing the ESRB pages for DrkS 1 and 2, they're nearly identical with the only difference being that Dark Souls 2 lacked "exposed buttocks" for its partial nudity.

@ntm: Less gory, I think. DS1 and 3 have some gruesome images here and there, I can't recall any in DS2, though I may be missing something.

'Drang' strikes me as a legitimate use of murky history but 'Paledrake' is definitely a localization change that just seems a bit inconsistent with others. Seath is always referred to as the 'White Dragon' in Japanese. Both in in his boss fight in Dark Souls 1 and in his soul in Dark Souls 2. I haven't seen any comparisons for this game but I suspect it's the same since they continue to use Paledrake.

@mirado: Her breasts aren't big enough.

@efesell: Actually Paledrake was a term used in DS2 for his soul.

I felt like while DS3 answers a few questions, it also leaves quite a few more unanswered. But we'll have to see on that after people decipher more of the lore. There are some possible crazy implications, that may or may not answer some of the major questions from DS1.

I know? The question was on localization intent and consistency.

I'm still holding firm to the theory Solaire is a chosen undead. Hopefully nothing comes along in the next five hours to derail that.

I wasn't aware the previous games had any questions that needed answering.

How can Solaire be anything if he became hollow and I killed him?

Oh right, forgot to post this stuff earlier.

The lore is presented the way it is because the director used to read fantasy stories in English, but he couldn't understand a lot of the finer details because he wasn't fluent. So he had to piece together stories from what he could understand, and this is reflected in the game with the vague item descriptions and NPC dialogue.

Second point: what sort of stuff do you even want to know the answers to? I feel like there aren't any huge questions unanswered after finishing DS3, but I also felt that way after finishing DS1 so I'm not sure where you're coming from, I guess. Like others have said though, it's more building on/expanding the lore we already know, alongside all the stuff that's new in DS3. You might see how one thing spiraled out and effected the world post DS1, for example. Just remember that a lot of it is in item descriptions.

@shindig: @ezekiel:Every one that finished the game is the chosen undead. Dark souls is just big cluster fuck of multiverse theory and relativity. Anything that can happen will happen. So just because you killed Solaire in your game doesn't mean that he in another dimension didn't go insane and managed to link the fire and what not. for me what's more interesting to discuss in the Dark Souls "multiverse"(?) is the things that overlap everything, the kingdoms, the gods, and the ancient legends that some how survive through out history.

But at the end of the day it's just a good game that I enjoy playing :)

I don't even think that's theory I think Miyazaki just kinda said that. He links the Fire in his world anyway.

I could definitely see this. It makes a ton of sense with regards to his look, the whole lighting thing, and fits well into the lore too. As Seath betrayed his own, so did Gwyn's own son. Would be totally fitting.

It's safe to say that isn't a theory any more at this point, but rather just accepted fact. The items and soul descriptions attributed to him states that he was a dragon-slaying god of war, one that gave up everything to ally with the ancient dragons, and the heir to lightning. There's also the fact that the Dragonslayer Armor states that Ornstein came in search of him after Gwyn linked the flame for the first time.

@dudeglove: Really? I didn't know two was that far ahead of the first. Cool. It seems so weird that in a world like this, rulers rise and fall. Or architecture can shift rather than just from environmentally. Some are mentioning time, and I kind of wish I played Dark Souls' DLC, where you go to Oolacile, which I consider pretty important, and that it takes 200 - 300 years before the main game.

@teddie: @ezekiel: Yeah, that's why I said I don't need any answers (I just wanted to know if it answered any if there were any), and why I asked why three needs to exist, at least in the same universe, so closely related from what I understand, since I felt the first answered everything there. I mean, if it's the final one, I would think it would clear stuff up rather than entirely bring up questions again that there were. I don't know.

Been wanting to play Dark Souls 2, but haven't got the chance since my brother's been playing for hours of another game (he's literally been playing all day, when he said he would have had it beat last night). Anyways, I like it so far, but there was a lot of time I didn't make much progress unfortunately, as I took some time to get upgraded enough to feel confident enough in beating the three Ruin Sentinal's in Lost Bastille. That was an intense fight. It was like the rest of the games, where I had to pull back, block and hit when the opportunity arose. They died quickly enough, but they would kill me in one or two hits if I didn't block their attacks. Now that I beat them, I'm on my way to progressing. I beat the Bell Gargoyle's (similar fight as the first, even the same music; just more gargoyle's, and smaller), and I just went to the bonfire just beyond there and killed the dogs and phantom yesterday morning.

I am now going to go back to a place I went to the entrance to, but didn't go far into it. Not sure of the name, but it looked like a flooded area in a basement, once you take an elevator down. I don't think the game is hard, but I died way more in this already, I think more than I have in Demon's and the first Dark Souls combined. I got pretty fed up of going slow, so I didn't play as well. I didn't enjoy grinding early on, and I couldn't find any new place to visit to see if I can do another area first. I am also surprised even in this game the L1/L2 & R1/R2 aren't switched, it makes holding guard for extended amounts of time difficult, especially in intense boss fights where my hands sweat. I would have thought that going from last-gen to current, they would have flipped it. I also got fed up with some of the deliberate design decisions to make it more challenging, like walking slow, or not at all when healing, or in Lost Bastille, how I couldn't run back without using a bone, as that was a fine place to grind for souls.

It's not a big issue, but I was frustrated for some time because I just wanted to move on. I rarely run from enemies in these games, but I know I'm not powerful enough to take on any of the multiple pursuer phantom's that arise from the flooring as I went through Lost Bastille. I mean, I could probably do so, but I didn't want to take the chance. It has even more moves than the normal boss did, two of them killing me in one hit. I am also wondering, seeing as three may be the last Souls game, does it sadden anyone? Does it feel like the end in three as you go/went through it?

@dudeglove: Oh, yeah. The last two sittings I played, I got pretty far into it, so the lost sinner and Lost Bastille are places I would consider long completed, and just about entirely (there's still a ledge or two I hadn't reached I think). The bosses haven't been too bad, but really intense as usual. I quit earlier just when I got into Black Gulch. I turned the brightness up in The Gutter area, and it took me a while to figure out I could jump down off a ledge that leads into Black Gulch, though I jumped because I knew there was a reason that jump was there; I took the chance. I never had an issue with the exploding dudes because I just smack them and they die before they get up, or hit them as they walk up to me before the attack triggers, but when they do blow me up, it only ever took a quarter of my health at most. As for the Sinner, all I did was strafe him right or left, and use my normal and sometimes strong attack, and he died. He was one of the easier, less intense bosses in the game.

I died on him once, and my jaw nearly dropped because I thought he was so easy, it surprised me that he got the best of me. And yeah, it wasn't really dark in that instance (even as my brightness in the setting, as usual in this specific game, is all the way low), but they still make it so your lock on goes off of him if he's too far away, which was kind of dumb. After the Ruin Sentinels, the game has been kind of a breeze. It's kind of like at the end of Dark and Demon's, where I kind of just went through it with minimal loss pretty quickly. I'm also super curious in what order people beat places in, because in the quick look, Brad was in place at the start of the video I hadn't even gone to yet. It makes me wonder what I missed, and how I missed it. The bosses beaten, and their respective areas cleared entirely, or nearly so, so far; listed not in order of completion:

The Last Giant

The Pursuer

Lost Sinner

Belfry Gargoyle

Ruin Sentinels

Royal Vanguard

Royal Rat Authority

Scorpioness Najka (reminded me of Quelaag, though not quite as hard, as she wasn't as relentless in her attacks, but close)

The Duke's Dear Freja

Prowling Magus and Congregation

So, those are the areas and bosses I have done so far. Seems I have quite to go, looking at a list. I noticed this game has a lot more of the A.I. invasions than the first two as well, even at random times. I died before The Duke's Dear Freja a handful of times, and a phantom came after a few deaths, and then not after. Also, some of the bosses are clearly connected to the first games. It's interesting, though I don't necessarily know how they are. I hope I run into the DLC stuff... This game is really great too. I just dislike any time in these games that it requires too much grinding in one spot, though I found out that, that wasn't so much an issue despite my original feelings for the first and second in that respect. Three is going strong now too. As for the bosses, I like them. They're fun, but they're also the best source of souls. Upgrading is going fast.