Firelink Shrine is the first of what will be many environmental callbacks, each bearing the weight of centuries and many changed beyond recognition. In Dark Souls 3 this long-term wear and tear is applied to the Lordran we knew. This is surprisingly direct and aggressive with what has gone before, to the extent it feels like From Software wants to definitively cap the series.ĭark Souls was a world where history had already happened over hundreds of years, and you as the Chosen Undead were learning about it by picking through the debris. It's not a bad concept, as these things go, but Dark Souls 3 has no such compunctions. At the core of Dark Souls 2 was a message about repetition, about how cycles can become ever-diminishing and ever-further from their source, and in so doing it shifted focus from the world created by Dark Souls towards its own distorted reflection of same. One of the player's first significant accomplishments in Dark Souls 3 is finding a much-changed Firelink Shrine, indicating the more direct relationship with Dark Souls that will be borne out over this epic journey. Availability: Out on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on April 12th.