Trivia / Dark Souls

• Actor Allusion: Many of the voice actors from Demon's Souls play characters very similar to their Dark Souls counterparts.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • People quoting Andre's parting words to player often cut his two lines down to "Don't go turnin' Hollow." His actual quote is "Don't get yourself killed, neither of us wants to see you go Hollow."
  • Solaire's lines are often repeated in Caps Lock with plenty of exclamation points, partially due to Memetic Mutation. He actually delivers them in a rather soft-spoken and gentle tone.
  • Solaire at no point utters the words "Praise the Sun", that instead being the name of a gesture used by the covenant he belongs to.
  • The game's multiplayer elements are loosely justified by Solaire's explanation that in Lordran "The flow of time itself is convoluted.", a line often abridged to "Time is convoluted."
• Breakthrough Hit: Demon's Souls was a Sleeper Hit and a slowburner that slowly built up in popularity through good word of mouth and critical acclaim in western countries. Dark Souls on the other hand was an instant hit, selling 1.6 million copies within the first month, 2.367 million by 2013 and helped put FromSoftware, a Japanese developer with a small cult following in the states, on the map as a developer of great, hardcore titles. It was also a Breakthrough Hit for director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who was only credited in three games before he got notoriety for his work with Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. Even he was shocked by how much press and requests for interviews he suddenly started getting. Not bad for a niche title from a small developer.
• Blooper: When talking to Logan in the Duke's Archives, one of his lines was not edited down into a single take, leading him to repeat it.
• Colbert Bump:
  • The Silent Comedy received this when their songs, ""Bartholomew" and "All Saints Day", were featured in a couple of trailers for the game.
  • The Souls series sparked interest in FromSoftware's King's Field series, which was the originator for the medieval theme and some elements of the game (such as a dragon named Seath and the Moonlight Greatsword) but never caught on in the states.
• Contest Winner Cameo: Four fan-made shield designs made it in the game proper: the Sanctus, the Effigy Shield, the Bloodshield, and the Black Iron Greatshield.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Not the game itself, but Miyazaki isn't exactly happy with how the fight against Gwyn was designed, since it was meant to challenge any build the player would use, instead of being a parry exploit fest. This is exactly why Gwyn was revamped as the Soul of Cinder's second phase and the exploit removed.
  • The designers have expressed regret about Lost Izalith, saying that they were in a time crunch when working on the level and as a result it did not come off as very polished (there's even one area where the background is missing any textures and is featureless gray, though you'd have to be looking for it to see it). Many assume that the Bed of Chaos was part of the reason for this statement (with some falsely saying that Miyazaki directly apologized for the boss), but it was never brough up directly by any of the developers.
• Creator's Pest: In one interview with Miyazaki, he explained that he didn't plan for Gwynevere's design as he originally planned for something more "refined" and motherly. When he saw the artist's look of happiness, he just didn't have the heart to say no.
  Hatsuyama: Can I ask about Gwynevere, because compared to the other female charters she's very different, almost glamorous.
  Miyazaki: You don't like the design?
  Hatsuyama: No, I just wanted to know what the original idea behind her was.
  Otsuka: As a fan of the character, I'd be interested to hear that too.
  Miyazaki: The truth is that I just wanted to make a really big woman. I think it was a Fujiko F. Fujio manga, (Yasuragi no Yakata, literally Tranquil Mansion) in which there was a company president who joins an exclusive club to escape his stressful work life, and there's this giant woman who takes care of the club members, almost like a mother… don't you think that's just a perfect situation? A giant, considerate, caring woman. The kind we all lost when we grew up; that's what I wanted to make. Originally I wanted to put a mouth in the palm of her hand and we made all of the animations, but it didn't make it into the final game. Talking of glamour, her breasts have nothing to do with me, they happened without my knowledge. It's all the artist's fault. I think I mentioned it earlier but I always seek a certain refinement in all my designs.
  Waragai: Really?
  Miyazaki: Yes, but the artist had such a happy look on his face, I didn't have the heart to stop him.
• Dueling Games: Despite being a month apart, Dark Souls has a rival in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with both being the top RPGs coming out in 2011's fourth quarter. Fans of both series groaned at news outlets trying to play up this conflict in spite of the games' numerous differences.
• Dummied Out: A variety of items and quests were dummied out. However, a few armor sets like the Elite Cleric Set and the Mage Smith Armor can be obtained by modifying your saved game.
• God Never Said That: Whenever someone questions the name of Sen's Fortress, the most common response is that it's a mistranslation of the number Sen and that the Japanese name is Fortress of a Thousand Deaths. However, if you actually check the Japanese version, the "Death" part isn't there at all. Most likely, it's a reference to the real-life location Himeji Castle, a labyrinth of traps and deception inhabited by Princess Sen.
• Meme Acknowledgement: "It's like Dark Souls" quickly became a shorthand for any game more than slightly difficult. The box for Dark Souls Remastered references this.
• Teasing Creator: Miyazaki liked to be coy about certain secrets in the game during its heyday. He encouraged fans to keep hunting for a use for the Pendant for a long time before admitting it was a prank, and stated that Ceaseless Dicharge is skippable before mysteriously stating that maybe he isn't (it is possible, both legitimately and with glitches, but the methods used make it obvious that it wasn't dev-intended).
• Real Song Theme Tune: "Bartholomew", by the Silent Comedy, is used in one of the game's trailers.
• Throw It In!:
  • Maneater Mildred. Word of God says that one of the developers, who was a fan of the Executioner Miralda (the black phantom who used a meat cleaver) from Demon's Souls, invaded another developer during debugging and surprised the rest of the development team. They liked it enough that they got the data and quickly wrote up a background for her.
  • The movement of the Undead Attack Dogs was initially unintentional and "a little off," to quote Miyazaki, but the developers liked how organically unnatural and creepy it was and left it in, reasoning that a deliberate attempt at being that unsettling would be less impactful.
• Trolling Creator: When the game was released, game director Hidetaka Miyazaki hinted that the pendant you could choose as a starting item (the only other way to get one is to let Petrus kill Reah) would be a Chekhov's Gun. A year later, Miyazaki admitted that the pendant is completely useless since the whole thing was intended as a prank, tricking hundreds or even thousands of players into choosing a completely worthless pendant as their starting item.
• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • A persistent rumor claimed that the player has the option to spare the Great Grey Wolf Sif and that you would get his sword as a reward for doing so. No proof or method has been found, but many still believe there is a way to accomplish this. It is possible to technically spare Sif, by using a certain glitch to transfer the Covenant of Artorias to a new character. You get no proper resolution for it, of course.
  • Hidetaka Miyazaki suggested before the game released that the player should choose the Pendant as a starting gift or nothing at all. Many players believed this to be a hint that the Pendant had a secret hidden use, and a crusade began to find the truth about the item, but nothing was found. Rumors began circulating until Miyazaki eventually broke and admitted that the Pendant has no use. Despite this, there is precisely one use for the pendant (although even then it's not a very good one): you can trade it to Snuggly the Crow for a Souvenir of Reprisal, used to advance in the Blade of the Darkmoon covenant.
• Word of God: Developer interviews have shed some light on the story of the game.
  • Miyazaki has stated that the Pygmy is the ancestor of humanity and that humanity inherited a piece of the Dark Soul through him. Dark Souls III elaborates on this significantly.
  • The Gaping Dragon was originally a normal Everlasting Dragon that became corrupted by its own gluttony, causing it to grow a massive maw.
  • Ceaseless Discharge is confirmed to be the brother of the Daughters of Chaos.
  • If you kill Gwyn with Solaire as a phantom, Solaire links the fire in his own world.
  • Kirk is a member of the Chaos Servant covenant.
  • The ruins in Darkroot forest were originally part of Oolacile. Combines with What Could Have Been. You were originally supposed to be summoned there to rescue Dusk. The Updated Re-release builds on the cut content.
  • The Crow Demons found within the Painted World are followers of Velka, whom had their wish to grow wings and fly transmogrify them into the beings encountered.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Miyazaki has said in interviews that he made up the lore of Dark Souls as he went along.

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