Dark Souls grew out of Demon’s Souls and became a byword for difficulty done right: fights that are hard but fair, a world that teaches through danger, and a story told in item descriptions and half-ruined architecture. You are Undead, cursed to rise every time you fall, in an age where the first flame is dying.

The trilogy runs from Dark Souls (2011) and its interlocking world of Lordran, through Dark Souls II (2014), to Dark Souls III (2016), which brings the cycle of fire to its end. Its influence is everywhere; the word Soulslike exists because of it.