Dark Souls Remastered accessibility review
Game title: Dark Souls Remastered
Platform(s): Windows, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, remote play on phone, tablet, or TV (through Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One)
Originally released on: Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, and traditional and simplified Chinese
Age rating: ESRB M, PEGI 16
Genre/theme: Dark fantasy action RPG; your character makes use of melee weapons, bows, shields, magic, miracles, and pyromancy to take down hordes of monsters, dragons, undead, and powerful bosses in the bleak lands of Lordran. Leveling up, learning new skills, improving the estus flask, and kindling bonfires are essential to survival and success in this medieval netherworld.
Violence: Heavy; adding a macabre comedic effect to the game, corpses have ridiculous ragdoll physics and can be flung around as if they hardly weigh anything, sometimes getting stuck on your foot and dragged around like toilet paper, sometimes getting stuck glitching out in a wall. There is a fair amount of blood spray from attacks which can be turned off in the Options menu, though limb and tail dismemberment during battle will still occur with enemies and bosses. Note that intentionally or accidentally killing NPCs and merchants results in permanent death for their character, and you losing access to their services.
Maturity: Partial nudity. No sexuality, swearing, or drugs or alcohol references. The dark nature of the world and the hideous creatures and boss designs are totally the stuff of nightmares, I wouldn’t recommended it for children, even with the blood turned off.
Phobias:
Blood/gore: The Show Blood setting can be turned off in the Options menu. Dismemberment will still remain with this turned off (a couple of bosses have tails that can be cut off to be used as powerful weapons), but there will no longer be any bloodspray or puddles.
Heights: Yes; you can fall from great heights to your death.
Drowning: Yes; your character cannot swim and will sink immediately when stepping into deep water. This is avoidable if you look closely at the water, the land’s edge can be seen and carefully avoided.
Sharks: None
Spiders: Yes; Chaos Witch Quelaag is half-human and half-spider, and has spider legs. Defeating this boss is required to progress through the main story.
Underwater: None
Multiplayer: Online multiplayer supports up to 6 players on a dedicated server, multiplayer can be played cooperatively or player-vs-player. There is no local split-screen multiplayer mode. Note that when playing online your world is open to be invaded, so if you prefer to avoid having a random online player load into your world and murder you then you may want to play the game in offline mode. Online players can leave messages on the ground for players to see in their game world; these can be a mix of helpful, funny, and the opposite of helpful (leading you to your death), so read them with discretion. Gestures can be used to communicate with players online, either in a helpful way or to tease/taunt in player-vs-player.
To play cooperatively online you will need to obtain the White Sign Soapstone item from Solaire (in Undead Burg) by either saying yes to his first two requests or by killing him and taking it. Place the White Sign Soapstone in one of your item slots and then you can press the use-item button to leave a cooperative summon sign on the ground in the location that you need help completing.
You can also play cooperatively with friends online by setting the same network password and then leaving a summon sign. I have not done this myself, and from my understanding neither player can have already beaten the boss you’re taking on together, so they must be at the same point in the story. Note that The Great Hollow, Ash Lake, Dragon Valley, Undead Asylum, and the final boss cannot be played cooperatively.
To play competitively online you must find and use a Cracked Red Eye Orb, which allows you to invade the world of a random player online. The game will load you near their location, and then you can find them and challenge them to battle (they don’t really get a say in the matter). The winner collects however many experience points (souls) the loser was carrying.
Difficulty modes: None; upon completing the game New Game + begins, rolling your character over into a new story playthrough with increased difficulty and also increased experience points. This can be done as many times as you wish to play through the main story at a more challenging difficulty level.
Almost every area has at least one summonable character you can call out to to help you fight through the area and the boss battle, some areas even have two or three summonable fighters. Make sure to keep Humanities stocked and use one to regain your humanity and reveal these summon signs, often placed near the boss fog doors. These fighters will aggro most bosses, taking the heat off of you and allowing you to sneak around and attack the boss from behind. Don’t be ashamed to make use of these support characters, as some of the bosses are extremely tough (*cough* Smough and Ornstein).
If you’re having trouble getting past a specific area or boss, leveling up will likely help. Spend a fair amount of time running through the same areas a few times in a row to collect experience points to use on improving your stats. Leveling up the Attunement stat will also unlock additional spell slots at certain levels for magic, pyromancy, and miracle users to fill with a learned spell.
One totally valid approach to the game is to walk or run past most of the enemies. Enemies will chase you if you do this so you’ll need to be swift, but generally you can avoid most enemies and just run through the level directly to the boss room, you’ll see this a lot in YouTube walkthroughs showing the path to the boss.
Complexity: High; Dark Souls is probably not the best game for anyone who doesn’t enjoy serious gaming challenges. It requires practice to master, and you absolutely learn from your mistakes along the way. There are many hidden paths and puzzles and you will almost definitely have to refer to a strategy guide or video walkthroughs once or twice (or a lot more than that). Thankfully there are a ton of useful videos on YouTube detailing the path to almost any item or boss you’re trying to find.
Certain rings and elemental weapons can be more/less effective against certain enemies and bosses, and this isn’t very well explained in the game, but you’ll notice for instance a fire weapon may not do very much damage against an enemy that seems to have high fire resistance. Finding the right gear and elemental magic to use can take a bit of trial and error, though many of the walkthroughs and guides available will mention these advantages/disadvantages. Inventory management is also a critical component of the game, and there are several blacksmiths and merchants you can purchase weapons, armor, and items from, and later in the game you can sell your extra items to Kingseeker Frampt (near the Firelink Shrine).
Instructions, saving, story recap, menus, & waypoints: FromSoftware is not known for holding your hand or explaining things clearly in their games, so you’ll likely need to reference a strategy guide, walkthrough, or videos. The story is fragmented and filled with mystery, with bits of world lore to be discovered everywhere.
Choose the Master Key as your gift when starting the game; I can’t recommend this highly enough, it will open up several pathways and make navigating Lordran significantly easier. The controls are explained in a quick tutorial following your character creation at the beginning of the game, and can also be referenced in the “Button Settings” section of the Options menu.
Dark Souls uses a bonfire checkpoint system, where your character must reach the next bonfire to save their progress, return their character to full health, and to level up. The first bonfire you encounter (the Firelink Shrine) works as a central hub with many branching paths, and you’ll visit this area many times throughout the game. Bonfires can be kindled by using a Humanity and then offering that humanity at the bonfire, this increases the strength of the bonfire which allows you to refill your Estus Flask with even more healing charges (up to 20 maximum). Elevators and shortcuts can be unlocked to make travel from area to area quicker, yet this game does not have fast-travel like Dark Souls 2, 3, and Elden Ring, so prepare to do some walking and to learn the routes between areas.
Building on the success of the game design from FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls continues the tradition of collecting experience points from each enemy defeated, then should you get killed before reaching the next bonfire checkpoint your experience points will be dropped in the location that your character was killed. You then must make it back to this location to acquire the experience points again, otherwise they’re lost forever if you die again. Homeward Bones are very useful items to keep in your inventory, as they allow you to warp back to the previously visited bonfire without losing any experience points.
Note that there is no waypoint or map in-game, though maps can be found in the strategy guide and online. Menus are fairly straightforward to navigate and there are brief descriptions of each item in your inventory. You can also press the “Toggle Display” button to reveal even more information about items, and the “Toggle Status” button to check the status of weapons and armor. The Bottomless Box can be purchased from Domhnall of Zena (in the Depths), which gives you access to an infinite inventory and allows you to manage that inventory at a bonfire.
Two weapons, a shield, catalyst (magic spells), talisman (healing miracles), and pyromancy flame (fire magic) can be equipped to each arm, allowing you to carry a total of 4 pieces of gear that can be easily switched between with the press of a button. Weapons and armor deteriorate with use and can break, requiring you to take them to a blacksmith and pay a hefty price to fully repair them. You’ll receive a warning message when your weapon or armor is at risk, and you should switch to a different piece of gear or use a Repair Powder. I recommend switching between at least two weapons fairly regularly to avoid this when going through longer areas, as well as always repairing any damage your gear has whenever you stop by a blacksmith.
Weapons and armor are improved by collecting or buying Titanite Shards, Large Titanite Shards, Titanite Chunks, Titanite Slabs, Twinkling Titanite, and the various forms of magic-infused Titanite, and then paying a blacksmith to improve the stats of your gear with the required number of Titanite in your inventory. When you defeat a boss they will drop their soul as an item, which you should hang onto to use for boss weapon crafting once you meet the Giant Blacksmith in Anor Londo, who can do all of the advanced smithing.
Subtitles: Yes; subtitles are utilized.
Text customization: UI Scale can be customized, but only shrunk, there are are no options larger than 1.00X unfortunately. The HUD can also be turned off/on. The text is a small-medium size white font on a dark background, and is readable, but it would be nice if the font size could be increased. Note that the Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro, and gaming PCs can run the game at 4k resolution, which may make text and the UI appear smaller.
Voice acting: None; only some grunting while jumping and swinging your weapon.
Volume settings: Music, Sounds, and Voice can all be set from 0–10.
Photosensitivity: Brightness can be adjusted in-game and set from 0–10. The glint of the light reflecting off of your shield isn’t particularly easy on the eyes, but with low brightness and contrast it’s tolerable. Some shields are more/less reflective than others and this is mostly an issue when holding a weapon with two-hands and keeping your shield stowed on your back.
Lightning weapons, lightning spells, and gold pine resin all make use of intense flashing lightning animations. I definitely don’t recommend anyone with medium-high photosensitivity attempt to play the game using lightning spells or weapons, though fire, poison, crystal, raw, occult, divine, chaos, and dragon weapons don’t create any flashing effects, but fire weapons and spells do have a flickering effect when in a dark area. Candles and bonfires have a slight flickering effect, and bonfires will blaze brighter with even more intense lighting effects as you kindle them. Thankfully the bonfire menu overlays and blocks the flame so you don’t have to stare into the fire while leveling up.
Certain enemies make use of lightning weapons and spells, most notably are the Titanite Demons (like the one near Andre the blacksmith). I don’t recommend sticking around these enemies or attempting to take them on until your character has pretty strong stats and gear. Once they’re defeated they will no longer spawn in that area and it will be lightning-free, so there’s some incentive to take them down when you’re up for the task, but their lightning attacks are extremely hard on the eyes, so avoidance and running away quickly may be your best option.
Both the Cloranthy Ring and the Grass Crest Shield increase your stamina recovery speed, and they also both create shimmering sparkles of light on your character for the entire time you have either item equipped; using Green Blossom will have the same effect as well, but only lasts for a short while. These are very useful items and I do recommend using them, playing the game with fairly dim brightness and low contrast will help lessen the visual impact. I don’t recommend focusing your eyes directly on the shimmering sparkles emanating from your character’s torso, but instead on the head of your character or just above their head, or focusing on either arm works just as well.
Motion-sickness and camera: Camera Speed can be adjusted from 1–10 for both X and Y axises. X and Y axises can also be reversed/inverted. Toggle auto lock-on can be turned off/on. Camera auto wall recovery can also be turned off/on. I recommend avoiding putting the camera sensitivity at a high level to avoid any potential motion-sickness, I didn’t experience it much at all with the sensitivity set at about medium.
The framerate is a smooth and steady 60 frames-per-second on PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One X, and gaming PC, but is noticeably lower on the Switch, locked at 30fps. The framerate on the base model Xbox One and PlayStation 4 aims for 60fps but can drop down to about 50fps in busy areas and battles. Comparatively, the framerate on the original release for the Xbox 360 and PS3 very rarely made it up to 30fps and could dip as low as 10fps, making for pretty slow chugging graphics.
Colorblindness mode: None; color settings can only be adjusted in TV settings.
Controller rumble: Yes; vibration can be set from 0–10.
Remappable controls: 100% fully remappable, all buttons can be reassigned.
Quick-time events: None; parry attacks require very deliberate timing to counter enemy attacks, but parrying isn’t required to beat the game.
Physical impact: Medium-heavy; can vary depending on what type of weapons you choose to use. Daggers, short swords, whips, and dual weapons require quick button pressing, whereas casting magic spells and fighting with heavier/stronger weapons like spears, hammers, and greatswords is much easier on the hands and arms.
Adaptability and input: Controls are simple, well spaced out, and can be fully customized. Many of the default controls are thumb input, so gamers with thumb or thumb joint struggles may have to set the controller on their lap and play using their fingers but this is definitely doable. Conversely, the shoulder buttons are used for attacks and require a lot of use of the index and middle fingers, but these button can also be mapped to different buttons. Can be played one-handed and with feet (but requires fast toe reflexes).
Can be played with two Switch Joycon controllers, two controller-docked Joycon controllers, handheld-docked Joycon controllers, Switch Pro controller, keyboard + mouse, Gamecube controller, PlayStation 4 Dualshock 4 controller (adapter required to use on Switch), PlayStation 5 DualSense controller (on PlayStation 4), Xbox One controller, Xbox One Bluetooth Controller (adapter required to use on Switch), Wii U Pro Controller (adapter required to use on Switch), and Steam Deck controller. Touchscreen functionality is available by playing remotely with a smartphone or tablet (through Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One). No voice control functionality.
The original version of the game can be played with the Xbox 360 controller and PlayStation 3 Dualshock 3 controller.
To read more about how you can pair different controllers with the Nintendo Switch and with PC, check out my post on the topic: https://medium.com/@AbleGaming/how-to-use-your-favorite-console-controllers-on-nintendo-switch-and-pc-and-how-to-use-your-switch-64d7a7bc7b7f
Overall accessibility score: 2.7/5.0
(Please note that this score does not reflect the entertainment or enjoyment value of the game, it represents the range of accessibility for gamers who have specific limitations.)
Dark Souls took the gaming world by storm when it first released in 2011, and then again in 2018 when the Remastered version was released for modern consoles. With the tagline “Prepare to Die”, it’s fair to say that playing Dark Souls is a trial-and-error type of experience, and that many deaths will surely happen. The extreme level of difficulty is by far the greatest accessibility concern here, and for many years fans have been asking FromSoftware to add difficulty settings or an easy mode to their games, and the response has repeatedly been “no,” claiming that the main creative point of their games is to create a challenge to rise above. On one hand, the old-school gamer in me applauds this approach requiring practice and determination to fully master the game, yet on the other hand… the difficulty level is a serious barrier blocking many people from playing and enjoying the world of Dark Souls, and it really would be nice to see the option available.
The world of Dark Souls is enigmatic to say the least, bordering on intentionally vague. The story is a patchwork fantasy, and figuring out where to go next is not always clear and often requires exploration and backtracking; there is no map, waypoint, or guide arrow to rely on. Several aspects of Dark Souls are not readily explained when creating a character and starting a game, such as which starter class and which stats you’ll want to focus on leveling up to maximize a melee, magic, miracle, pyromancy, or mixed character build. Relying on a strategy guide and/or walkthrough videos is almost a must, as it’s easy to get lost and some weapons and bosses aren’t very easy to find. Multiplayer is not the simplest game mode to get started, and requires the use of in-game items that aren’t available to you at the start of the game, and no players in a cooperative party can have already beaten a boss before playing it online.
Fully remappable controls make customizing your playstyle a breeze, and it’s great that there are several different consoles and controllers to choose from. Motion-sickness is primarily a concern if you turn the camera sensitivity settings up to a high level, but isn’t an issue at a slow camera speed, and barely an issue at medium speed. As with all of the Souls games, Dark Souls has lightning weapons and spells, and these are very intense lighting effects for anyone with medium-high photosensitivity; thankfully you don’t have to use any of these, and there aren’t many enemies that use them. Don’t worry, there are plenty of other types of powerful weapons and magic to choose from. Text size is small-medium and the font size can’t be increased, but it is high-contrast at least. There is no voice acting, and very few subtitles; FromSoftware and Dark Souls eschew exposition for exploration in this violent role-playing adventure.
My review can also be read and listened to (text-to-speech) on my Medium page at: https://medium.com/@AbleGaming/dark-souls-remastered-accessibility-review-9e9eacf048a6
