Dark Souls is one of those games where it doesn't tell you nearly everything that's going on in the lore without you having to read descriptions of items and generally pay attention to every bit of dialogue and the environment to piece together the story. As many have mentioned, VaatiVidya is the DS lore expert

I remember hearing a cool “what if” concept that your character goes hollow if you give up on the game. Since the undead don’t really go hollow until they’ve died too many times and fully give up on everything. Also I love the line for dark souls 2 I believe where she says “not all undead are hollow, but all hollows were once undead.”

Farron's undead legion...the Abyss Watchers. Gives me chills everytime, souls and bloodborne lore is amazing!

it's like a minute detail but the roar of Yhorm actually changes the direction of the wind as noted by the wind first blowing to the right of the screen yet the embers blowing to the left once he screams

Oddly enough Yhorm is one of the nicest characters in the series he's just had a really,really tough go of it.

Dark Souls 2 has been cast as the "black sheep" of the Souls series but it will always have a special place in my heart. I sunk sooo many hours into it back in high school. I love Drangleic

The DS2 cinematics don't get enough praise for how dark and beautiful they are. It's so interesting to see how lost and miserable your character is, doomed to slowly lose his memories and humanity as he endures a painful existence that will never end I love the ambiguity of the melting woman and child. His wife and baby? Or his earliest memories of his mother?

9:05 What she means here is that by the time you will actually arrive at your destination you will probably have hollowed out enough so that you won't remember the reason why you began your journey in the first place, that is the insidiousness of the curse, not just that you lose you cannot die or that your body decays but that your mind essentially starts to fall apart, worse than alzheimer's because that is just difficulty in remembering where as the curse is literally losing your memories as they disappear.

I love the very personal, subdued, creepy tone of DS2's intro. The other two are these big fantastical bombastic introductions to some magical world and a bunch of magical people you know nothing about, but DS2 is just about you and hints at some desperate journey you must go on.

Dark Souls, yay! For the first one especially, the intro perfectly set the mood and tone. Not to say tone isn't set by the other intros, but you know what I mean. Maybe. Still would love to see you guys play all the SoulsBorne games. Cheers! And oh yeah, for Dark Souls lore, you definitely want to check out VaatiVidya's videos, generally the ones labeled Prepare to Cry, he is THE go to SoulsBorne lore guy.

Hell yeah. My favourite game trilogy. Fun fact: the final boss of the 3rd game fights like how a player does in the 1st game and constantly swaps weapons and then in the second phase fights like the final boss of the 1st game. Even going so far as to share a boss theme. When I heard it the first time I cried. Because that meant the end of the series

The Souls games are just so amazing and dear to my heart. Those games shine in world and level design and really put the player on their toes. Always so satisfying to finally overcome a challenge that took your hours or in my case maybe days to do so.

I love the story behind dark souls. To super simplify, the world started in the age of ancients, which was full of arch trees and dragons. When fire was created and the first human like creatures we see underground find powerful souls inside the fire which end up becoming the four mentioned Gwyn who became a Godlike figure, Nito the first of the dead, the witch and her daughters of chaos, and the pygmy who is the ancestors to mankind. Using their powers along with one of the dragons betraying his kind out of jealousy, they started the age of fire by killing all the dragons they could and and destroying their arch trees with fire and decay. Well the age of fire was never intended to last forever because its supposed to be followed by the age of dark (like the lady said you can't have one without the other) and Gwyn wasn't ready to let his age of fire die out so he sacrificed himself to keep the flame lit and as a result it locked the world in a loop of always try to keep the fire lit, but it requires more and more power each time. The player characters can choose to let the flames go out or sacrifice themself like Gwyn to keep the age of fire going.

I’ve been watching this channel for so long and they have been consecutively made amazing reactions. They’re so genuine and interested in anything and have good input when talking about the video. You will never see another reaction channel like this one

Thanks to your video, I'm seeing Dark Souls II trailers I never knew existed! I love the unique lore and world of that game so it's awesome to see how cool the trailers were.

Just rewatching some of your reactions. I love how concerned you both seem to be. Like you’re wondering if there’s some underlying horror to living that none of us know.

Love… and I mean love these games. The amount detail that goes into each game is just magical at times. Glad you reacted to it.

brings nostalgia :0 what got me into dark souls.. is that it dosent hold your hand when you go for the journey so everything you do feels much more rewarding and the lore you find is amazing

Just got the notification and yelled "YESS!" Outloud...Thanks for the vid :D

Elden ring comes out Dark souls fans :oh hell you just made it personal

To answer the question, most of those are the opening cinematic of each game, but one was a trailer to Dark Souls 2. The subtle brilliance of each cinematic opening is that it's the common knowledge portion of the world and time at that very point leading up to your moment of awakening as a character and playing. The subtle brilliance of Darks Souls 2's is that it teases at the players who just play, ignore dialogue, and go straight for the ends in sight for accomplishing to a point so crucial and far, without really knowing why, but anyone paying attention to those we meet on the way and let their mind wander and even inspect the little things will find out a world more of information that tells not just one story, nor even one side of it for us to take in, but also a bit more of a story of those we meet along these dangerous paths, friend and foe alike. In fact the many characters we find will come in a wide variety of backgrounds and flavors of personality, and yet certain fundamental facts and traits we are suggested to put to the test, and we can find out some unusual truths about these entities. A little bit of it can even come out as misguiding at first until you actually go kill a few holy figures and find out how many people's claimed humanity they hold for who knows why in Dark Souls 1. Then just reading item descriptions around every corner for unique things tells a lot more to the story of figures you meet and make for many grim or inspiring tales, and even curious details that sound like something to look/poke at. For those a little lazier, an alternative option to absorb it exists called VaatiVidya as well as whomever else goes lore diving for secrets and finds their good story-telling voice.

The cinematics for these games are amazing :)

So cool to see more fromsoftware stuff from you guys. Now all there is left is Sekiro, which is probably the one with the easiest story to understand. Those were indeed the cinematic intros, there's a lot you guys could watch including lore videos if you're interested it that!

I love the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne and Elden Ring so much. Can’t wait for FromSoftwares next project!

You reacted to the three Intros to each of the games and there was a trailer in there for Dark Souls II as well. The intros are the big cinematics with the franchise, as most of the actual story is told through dialogue, item descriptions and who is where when and why. If you want to react to more Dark Souls content, I highly recommend the Prepare to Cry series from Vaatividya, though I don't know how well you would understand those without having played the game

Ohhhh you did it thank you ! I m so hyped to see your lore reactions to this beutifully crafted world.

I have been waiting a LONG time to see you react to these!!!

Their intro cinematics are always amazing!

I'm really happy to see you guys reacting to more of Souls world!! It would be awesome to see your reactions on the Souls lore by VaatiVidya, it's like reading a very dark, grim, yet beautiful fantasy story indeed!

hahahaha their face in the thumbnail is priceless

LOVE watching both of your reactions to many genres and mediums! It's nice to hear your thinking and comparisons to other works. Hehe seeketh someone that looks upon thee like Bethany looks upon Ken! 🤗🤗 (hugging)

Oh hell yes. The intros are bombastic af

This game gives you lore drip by drip. Most of what we know from the lore has been found in flavor text in items and associating names with random text and such. The first game is what gives an inkling to what happened. There are videos explaining the lore in detail, but long story short the first dark souls explains it's premise really well. Lords of Flame used their power to kill the immortal dragons. However, the fire that gave them power is dying out. Something that is happening at the same time, is the darksign, a circle brand you see, that brands you as undead. Unable to die, you are taken to the undead asylum where you will be kept prisoner. Undead are also called hollow, as they cannot die, they slowly lose their humanity, memories, hopes and dreams. I'm game, you are Hollow, and you hear of a prophecy that might end the curse of undeath.

Now this is my game. So glad your reaction to these gems of a games.

Not sure if anyone else has said it (Im sure they have), but VaatiVidya has a whole series for lore for each of the FromSoft games, starting with Dark Souls 1's Prepare to Cry collection

Light and Dark have eras in the Dark-Souls lore. After a thousand years of light, the curse of undeath starts to appear to herald the end of the cycle. The undead forget slowly who they are, and go hollow. If nobody can collect the great souls of fire to rekindle the flame before forgetting completely who they are, they will have a thousand years of Darkness. But just like the light can never truly outshine all the dark, the embers of light can never truly be put out. The lore is extremely difficult to make out, and is only dropped and hinted at in bits and pieces throughout the game, but those attentive who read and listen will be rewarded. I can recommend quite a few analysis vids here on YT that summarise the lore well. And even though it's dark, the light will never truly fade.

In the intro for Dark Souls I, they show the lords in order of importance, ending at the Furtive Pygmy. Clever bastards.

Yhorm the giant & his best friends Siegward lore is very touching..he's such a kind & selfless ruler

Awesome vid! 😀 The second video you watched was just a trailer for dark souls 2 but I’m glad it was in there because it’s epic. Also bump VaatiVidya reactions

Ds3 has one of the most beautiful opening cinematics I’ve ever seen in a video game it sends chills every time I fucking love how gritty it is. Gameplays even better lmao

Glad you two got to watch these for the first time and enjoy the darksouls world awesome reaction guys

The Soulsborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring games are some of those games that packs so much details in each of assets, be it the environment, the armours, weapons, bosses, enemies and so on, that it's easy to be lost in those details. Piecing together the lore and the story on your own, crafting theories, and playing this detective role is definitely an important pull of playing these games. But, if you're too dense like me, KZfaq videos can help lol.

Yay! best masochist series so far! The dopamine rush you get after you kill each boss is awesome

The games are grim and unforgiven but their are characters with backstories that will make you cry and some who will make you smile.

Dark Souls is an actual methor for depression and suicide, put into an fantasy game with dragons and magic. So good.

the knight that appears at the end is called the soul of cinder and he is basically the culmination of all those that linked the fire in the past or should i say the players of the past as he uses magic and multiple types of play styles that the community uses in his boss fight against you but in reality he was also the soul of Gwyn in his second phase you can hear the boss music of Gwyn but its distorted almost like he has been changed and twisted by all those that linked the fire after him

Oh hell yeah!! Dark Souls is my favourite game series, and the intros are so good!

YES!!!! Glad you decided to react to some good ol' Dark Souls. These were actually intro cinematics of the games. Dark Souls 3 actually has some very cool game music video style trailers out there, you could definitely check those out. As for the lore, for all SoulsBorne games reacting to some Vaati Vidya videos should be great. I also recently discovered a KZfaq channel by the name of The brothers' code and they go quite in depth with the lore as well. You could definitely react to some of their videos as well but be warned, their videos are quite lengthy and might take you multiple videos to provide full length reactions.

This trilogy in particular is very much the sort of series that values lore over narrative. The videos you watched today are the literal intro cinematics to the three Dark Souls games, plus for some reason they threw in a cinematic trailer for DS2 in between the intros for DS1 and 2. Very rarely in the games are you given much in the way of direct storytelling, the story will be told largely through monologues given to you by NPCs or the descriptions written on various items you come across in the game. Most of the time, you don't really know WHERE you're going or WHY (hence the dig in the DS2 intro about "standing before its decrepit gate...without really knowing why"), you just know some bits of info about the world you're in and are set loose to "just go DO something." You'll get small clues here and there as to how you're intended to progress, but the bulk of it is just "Ok I'm here...the enemies in THAT direction seem a lot easier to handle, so I guess I'll go that way." The extreme lack of handholding, coupled with a combat system that generally emphasizes taking your time and making deliberate choices based on reading your enemies and watching your positioning, has led to these games being NOTORIOUS for being some of the hardest games around...but really it's just learning your opponents' patterns and getting into a rhythm. Death has almost no lasting consequence (aside from a few highly specific circumstances), so really it's all about just getting out there and making progress wherever you find it. In terms of general quality...Dark Souls 1 is what most would consider to be the best game in the series. Level design was at its peak in terms of connectivity and the way areas flowed into one another, and it formed the basis of the mythology that would carry throughout the 3 games. Dark Souls 2, while something new at the time it came out when we were craving more Dark Souls...is largely skippable, and suffers from a LOT of design flaws that are most likely due to it being the ONLY game of all "Soulsborne" titles that WASN'T built under the guidance of Miyazaki, the director of the series. Dark souls 3 is my personal favorite of the trilogy (though my heart will ALWAYS adore the first game) because it's a lot of what was great about DS1, without a lot of the mess of DS2, and given the benefit of added years of experience and refinement from the team. I wouldn't say the story is on the same level as DS1, but the gameplay itself feels more fluid and satsifying IMO. And now that I've sunk a few hours into Elden Ring, I can see why people are raving about it so much. It's basically Dark Souls 4, just with a whole new mythology and a smattering of new design elements and features that put more power in the players' hands than ever before (with a bit of a difficulty curve to compensate). I think Horizon: Forbidden West is probably the premiere sequel of the year (so far) in my personal opinion, but Elden Ring is gonna keep me entertained for months to come, I bet.

Yhorm is a really a tragic hero. He was the only Lord who truly wanted to die but was driven to keep fighting. There's a questline in the game that if finished shows that Yhorm still has some memory of his past and just wants to die like a warrior.

"D A H K SUOLHS"

Dark Souls lore? That's what Vaatividya is for, he does lore videos not just for the story, but for locations and individual characters.

Dark Souls is unique in fantasy story telling. Whereas most fantasy settings, even darker ones, have themes of progress and triumph and adventure, and hope. Dark Souls embodies themes of stagnation, and a profound sadness. Everything in each Souls game is long past its glory days, just clinging on before being forgotten by the world. Ancient rusted knights patrol crumbling forgotten castles, their minds so far gone that they don't know why they're still there. Each boss you slay is the last of its kind, and their soundtracks reflect how while they can be intense battles, its also a mournful experience that its finally by your hand that they are snuffed out.

I’d love to see your reactions to some of the lore videos made for them, it’s pretty amazing

that dark souls 2 trailer is so good lol

Ooo huzzah for more of these :3 Hehe, cheers for the content, love to ye both, stay safe and take care x

Dark Souls 1- How it started Dark Souls 2 - How it's going Dark Souls 3 - How it ends

Ah yes, Dark Souls, the series of games at where at the end of the trilogy you fight a boss at the LITERAL END OF TIME.

Amazing reaction once again! and yes this franchise shine by all his misterious, even in the game the story is something you have to discover by yourself by exploring ,read the items descriptions , watching the villager of a corrupt village ect... becaus even when you start the game you know why you ar here , where you have to go , all you have is a used gear (or even nothing for the must couragous) and follow what you can !

dark souls lore is very tough to figue out and piece together with gameplay as lots of it is either in itemd escription or well hidden scenery in the world. That said i can recommend watching the "prepare to cry" series on dark souls lore. It uncovers lore 99.9% of players miss and explains it very very well. And do keep tissues ready its called prepare to cry for a reason.

Bloodborne lore just built spectacular I love lovecraftian horror

Surprised you didn't watch the trailers too. The atmosphere is amazing and what music you hear as a result is just beautiful, if haunting.

Qas the intro for Dark Spuls 2 changed at some point? I seem to remember very different intros for the original release & the expanded edition. There were some elements incorporated, but it was a very didferent, more cohesive version than I remember experiencing.

Fun fact: yhorms giant cleaver used to be one handed and he had a shield until he got rid of the shield and he changed the meat cleaver to two handed

DS3's opening is amazing. Yhorme's cry always gives me goosebumps!

Loved the first darksouls I've played through it quite a bit and I'll be honest there is probably a lot of stuff that either I missed or was too thick to grasp story wise so I would enjoy seeing a lore breakdown.

It seems interesting how “Soul” games make you feel scared to brave once stepping into the world of their’s. I am still a newbie to Soul games and watching these trailers to opening make me wanting to go back to my PS3 to play the games I have never completed in ages. Also I was introduced to Dark Souls from a mistaken description of a Manga called Soul Eater to Dark souls and my mother got me Dark Souls to play when I was 16. It seem to be the first RPG game for my first time and make me fond of them present times.

Finally, Dark Souls. Would absolutely recommend watching VaatiVidya for the lore videos.

This is the world that would be if Berserk were written by the Grimm brothers.

the symbolism in these things are great like in ds2 trailer when her face melts is the undead losing his memories because he died again becoming one step closer to being hollow. just one of many small details

Awesome Dark souls! This game series is so damn good. One of those games that I could always recommend at least trying. It is story feels truly epic, and it's gameplay is tough but satisfying once you learn its tricks. A must for fans of dark fantasy.

Love that y’all watched these. These are just the intro cinematics when you start a new game. If you’d like to learn about the story overall, VaatiVidya has a ton of videos breaking down the lore. He’s arguably the best at getting it as close to right as possible.

and he will stand at the gate not knowing why because even if they do tell him he will just forget after dieing a few times

Oh man, I forgot how FromSoftware manage to drop so much info in their trailers and at the same time let you without the slightest clue of what the fuck is going on

I will second looking at the lore videos, especially Vaati Vidya's stuff as they are easy to digest. But one other thing I would recommend is to listen to the music, which also tells a story in and of itself. The item descriptions, the scenery, and the boss music all combine to tell you a story. And Dark Souls III's music is all melancholy even on the few cases where it gets bombastic or chaotic.

a great series to learn the lore of dark souls is the prepare to cry series.

I'll have to do some digging around for the best video floor the lore, but its quite the trip.

YAY U DID IT

1:35 There my boy! Rave Lord Nito! He's the best! He's really neato.

Nameless would be so cool for you guys to react to some lore. Thanks for the great video😁

Awesome 😎👍. I really enjoyed The Dark Souls games

The Dark Souls series is another one of my Most Abso-fraking-lute favorite Video Game series of All Time!!!!! Really, really love the Weapons and Armor Sets in them My Most Absolute favorite weapons are the Greatswords, Curved Greatswords, and Most of All, Ultra Greatswords!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to know why everything is pretty vague and confusing then from what I understand Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Soulsborne series, read a lot of western fantasy books when he was a child but due to speaking and reading in mostly Japanese he didn’t understand a lot of the plot points and words in the books he read which forced him to take what he could understand and fill in the blanks through his own imagination. This is how the games are built to be presented to the player. It’s a world which is at the end of it’s life and you are the one walking through it trying to figure out for yourself how it got there. Whether through environmental details, item descriptions or character dialogue you get bits and pieces of. There is a deep, tragic and amazing story in these games that is very much worth looking into but it took the fans of the games to tell it in full detail or at least what we believe is the most accurate and likely to have happened. If you watch nothing else I recommend watching Vaatividya’s video on Artorias of the Abyss. He is a boss from Dark Souls 1 and you can go through the whole game never knowing his story but once you do know his story and why he’s a boss then he becomes difficult to fight for a whole different reason 😭 I love your guy’s reactions and thank you so much for watching these videos. I hope you end up watching at least one Vaati video cause he is a great story teller. Hope you have a great day!

Dark Souls 1 is probably my favorite game of all time and the other two are pretty good too.

Ironically enough, Yhorm is a gimmick fight

KEN AND BETHANY, As I already said in another video of your channel, I have the first DARK SOULS for playstation 3 and the reputation of being a very difficult game is deserved, since the beginning of the game. Every battle, whether against an enemy or a BOSS has to be very well planned. Changing the subject a little but talking about the SOULS franchise, the ELDEN RING game in less than 1 month sold 12 million units, that is, 12 million people bought and are playing a SINGLEPLAYER game and in the multiplayer from what I know thousands of people are Playing.

I would highly recommend the 'Dark Souls- Prepare to Cry edition' series, as it offers backstory lore on some of the characters in dark Souls, though be warned they are quite sad. Edit: it's by VaatiVidya

Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring are some of the few very dark fantasy games out there. With lots of messed up or disturbing things in the lore or events. They have a very unique setting, I think. Where the world hasn't quite ended, but it's wasting away. A world slowly dying. Death and decay is everywhere,. The inhabitants are harsh; very few having NOT succumbed to insanity at the state of the world. Everyone is downtrodden and what little hope remains are as fading embers. In these worlds you're a normal person--or less than a person: a hollow, an undead. Compared to the horrors that you meet, you're nothing. The world will slice you, smash you, crush you, impale you. But all the games emphasize determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. Get up. Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. Triumph. Live.

I totally recommend the Elden Ring cinematic story trailer to react to it's pretty epic

Dark Souls is awesome! 1 and 2.

George R R Martin worked on this world so its pretty immersive and very unique

Dark Souls 3 is probably in my top 5 greatest games of all time. Elden Ring is quickly joining it in the top 5 though, both being absolutely amazing

they were all the intros for the games except they added a dark souls 2 trailer right before the actual intro

Why am I getting a certain RING Influence from this?😏

Hm, have you done the Intros of the other Games too?

Fun fact the creator of dark souls and the formsoft games made the story because when he was younger he read english based fantasy novels when he barely knew English and loved the idea of barely knowing what was going on so he put that into his game sorry for the long comment I'm just a huge fan of the soulsborne franchise and have been a loving fan ever since so I did a lot of research

Actually yhorm is a pretty chill dude he died for his kingdom pretty Chad dude

We need more Dark Souls

What a strange thing for people to be reacting to. I love it.

I'm not sure if it was on your end or if it was just the video you were watching, but the first trailer seemed to have a small amount of audio desync.