Dark Souls in our Video Game Anniversary Tribute – Lets celebrate 10 Years of ..dying

Dark Souls Poster for the Video Game Anniversary Tribute on Game-Art-HQ by Marvin Law 

 

 
 
“This is my poster for the 10rh Anniversary of Dark Souls, and suffice it to say, I am a big fan of the game and the series overall.  It isn’t the punishing gameplay, weapons, or armor that attract me to Dark Souls.  It’s the lore of the world that drew me in and kept me there.  The little tidbits of information that the game gives us in its item descriptions, and NPC character interactions that Hidetaka Miyazaki has crafted, that makes the world of Dark Souls so enticing. 
 
I’ve been watching lore videos on Dark Souls, back in the days, when Epicnamebro would gather evidence, and speculate on certain aspects of lore within the world, based on those little hints we were given.  It was fascinating, hearing people’s ideas and theories, especially if they differed from one another, because any of it was possible, so long as Miyazaki and FromSoftware stayed mum on the subject matter and didn’t elaborate.
 
 
As for the poster, the 2 main figures of the poster, in the front and centre, are Lord Gwyn, who discovered the First Flame; proceeded to wage war upon the dragons; placed the seal of Fire upon humanity, creating the Dark Sign and cursing humanity with every lasting life; and he also serves as the final boss of the first Dark Souls game.
 
Underneath of him, is the player character, who is the most important character of Dark Souls, since it is the player’s avatar, who I have chosen to be in the Elite Knight armor set; the same armor worn by Oscar of Astora.  The reason for this is because every Dark Souls game has a specific character chosen to be on the box art, and for the first Dark Souls, it was this armor depicted, so it made it an easy choice.
 

The Four Kings

Seath, the Scaleless

Gravelord Nito

Bed of Chaos
 
In the top window, you’ll see, the Four Kings, Seath, the Scaleless, Gravelord Nito, and the Bed of Chaos. These are the 4 boss souls that you must collect, and offer up to the Lordvessel, in order to open up the pathway to the Kiln of the First Flame; so that the player character can face off against Lord Gwyn, in the final battle of Dark Souls.
 
In the window on the bottom left, I chose to depict some of the more iconic, early characters you will face off against in the Undead Burg, with the Taurus Demon, Capra Demon and the Hellkite drake.  My choice of the Taurus and Capra Demons in this poster, are that they were initial hurdles that gave players difficulty, if they hadn’t learned the game’s mechanics and how to properly utilize them in action.  The Hellkite drake’s inclusion was easy, due to the fact that he constantly harassed you on several iconic moments in the Undead Burg, which I’ve sure left an impression on first-time players of Dark Souls, especially if they were trying to cross the bridge.
 
 
In the window on the bottom right, you’ll notice Smough & Ornstein, along with Artorias, the Abysswalker, and his trusty wolf, Sif.  Smough & Ornstein were obvious choices for this poster, as they are probably one of the most memorable boss fights in Dark Souls, that I’m sure have left alot of players with PTSD, after having to deal with them both at the same time.  Artorias, the Abysswalker, much like Ornstein was one of Lord Gwyn’s 4 knights and the box art character for Dark Souls’ only DLC for the first game; which explored his tragic fate.  And Sif’s inclusion is pretty straight forward, since if you’re drawing Artorias, you have to include Sif as well, whose fate at the hands of the player character is equally tragic, especially if you did the DLC content first, before fighting him later on.
 
 
 
The idea/concept behind this poster was that it is structured similarly to the stained glass windows, which you saw in Anor Londo.  Placing Lord Gwyn at the centre of all things, was the only logical thing to do, as he was the start of the story, and would end up being the final boss of the first Dark Souls game, and many of the events after his sacrifice to kindle the First Flame, and many of the bosses in the game are connected to him in some fashion.
 
This poster was a lot of fun to draw and create, and like I said, I’m a big fan of Dark Souls…..enjoy……YOU HAVE DIED.”
 
 
 
~About Dark Souls~

Dark Souls by FromSoftware was first released in 2011 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 Systems, a PC Version followed in 2012. it also received an HD Remaster for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC, and a few months later also for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

It is the second game of its kind after Demon Souls, however, a good couple of its gameplay trademarks were already a part of way older FromSoftware games like the now discontinued Kingdom Fields series. Dark Souls received two direct sequels with Dark Souls II and III, the developer created also the similar games Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The Game got a ton of praise by both gamers and critics and was named to be one of the most influential games of its generation..as well as one of the most difficult ones. Around 2,37 million copies were sold by 2012.  

Today, it is an often used phrase by game journalists to call Game X the “Dark Souls of [insertgenre] if it is a rather challenging game 🙂 

 
 
 
~ About the Artist ~
 
 
Marvin Law is a part of the Game-Art-HQ Community since more or less its birth back in 2011 already and submitted many video game fan arts to our different art collaborations and challenges. Starting with his takes on M.Bison or Wolfgang Krauser in our first big collaboration, the Fighting Game Boss Tribute up to even Ashley Riot from Vagrant Story as part of our RPG Challenge. He was the first artist actually who finished a submission for our Anniversary Project with his Fatal Fury Tribute. Now, after his Dark Souls Piece he is thinking about creating a 3rd one maybe as well!
 
Marvin was born in Toronto, Canada and loves Comic Books as well as Fighting Games however, his favourite Video Game is the excellent Vagrant Story. he created over 350 artworks and there are many more to come!