I was just wondering if anyone knows of a good Lore catch up. Short video or article, don't really mind, but after playing Dark Souls 3 for a few hours, it's striking me that I only really remember the broadest of lore beats, and don't really remember much else.

I recommend VaatiVidya's stuff on YouTube. The videos are a bit on the longer side (10 to 20 minutes mostly), but they are well produced and get the point across.

Here's an article on PCGamer: Catch up with the complete Dark Souls lore primer

Most of it isn't short, though.

Thanks guys, digging through both of those has been great, and just what I was looking for :D

I would recommend against this simply because of the heavy handed, over dramatized production. Unless you're into that thing but personally I can't stand it and roll my eyes every time I hear even a snippet of it.

@humanity: If you don't like that one, which ones do you like?

@mike: If I had to choose I would simply go to a Wiki site and read some summaries since a lot of YouTube channels adopt that theatrical style of presenting the lore. If I were to recommend a short and sweet video that goes over the general facts and whatnot I'd point to something like the IGN Summary or something similar. If from that you want to know more details then go to the Wiki sites.

Of course if you're into the whole theatrics angle, then might as well watch the VaatiVidya stuff because as much as I hate the reading style you can't deny that the production values are really top notch.

VaatiVidya's Dark Souls 1 stuff was pretty solid. I found his Dark Souls 2 stuff less informative compared to some other lore video series out there (can't remember any names off the top of my head). To be fair I was looking at that stuff prior to the DLC content and the DS2 lore's ties to DS1 could be a bit nebulous at times.

@sessh: VaatiVidya's stuff is so rad.

Yeah, sometimes I prefer to just read a wiki and get the 'hard facts' (whatever those are in the DS universe) but his blend of production values and his own personal take on characters/situations really hits home. Good stuff.

While not short the bonfire side chat podcasts are a great deep dive into all souls lore.

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@dudeglove: The person starting the thread was asking for a short summary which was a harder thing to find. That said, I personally really enjoyed watching ENB's Bloodborne playthrough of the game after I had finished it, or simply watching only the episodes that got up to the parts I was tackling at the moment. This is a much slower burn obviously, but it was really nice to see him go through each area and point out some obscure details while theorizing on their importance. Sure sometimes it felt like he was really reaching but most of it was really informative and helped me comprehend that world a lot better.

He has started doing another playthrough of DS3 and it's just as meticulous as the Bloodborne one. The fact that he's good at the game, offers interesting boss strategies, and very methodical about combing through each area is also a great plus in my book. I've heard some of those Vaati rumors about plagiarism but I'm not entrenched in the lore scene enough to pass judgement one way or the other. In a way I'm not even sure how that works since I always assumed the lore stuff was a community effort which then gets regurgitated by most YouTube "celebrities" who make it their own by putting forth their own theories based on the concrete evidence the community dug up from item descriptions and so forth. The beauty and curse of these games is that nothing is concrete and almost everything is left up to interpretation. This means that From Software can play with the lore as they see fit, but it also means there are 101 different takes on the story and characters that can't really be proven or disproven one way or the other.

@dudeglove: he is doing a blind playthrough of DS3 so it's a lot less structured than the Bloodborne one and there's a lot of disjointed meandering going on but it's still pretty fun to watch.