Dark Souls is the greatest work of art

I want to start off with a disclaimer that I don't claim an objective superiority of Dark Souls 1 over say a 'Godfather' or 'Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' or 'The Sopranos'. It's my personal opinion and I will try to highlight why i think that is the case. If, like Roger Ebert, you feel that games do not qualify as works of art, you should consider that there was once a time when movies or TV shows weren't considered artistic either - instead we had music, sculptures/architecture and paintings. Rewind a few thousand years back and it was probably only cave art. The types of work considered to be art tends to change as time passes and video games are a relatively new type of media that I'm sure will be considered more universally as a work of art with time- well at least some games. Movies and tv shows are considered as works of art that are more elaborate than paintings or scultures because they involve aspects such as scripts, screenplay, camera, music, acting and so on - having said that being elaborate is not necessarily a good or a bad thing but it is definitely something i prefer. Games add an extra element of interaction of the player with the game world through gameplay mechanics and adds an extra layer of presentation and communciation with the game designer that movies or novels (except visual novels, which some consider as games) cannot achieve.

And when it comes to the definition of 'art' actually is, we don't really have a consensus on what the exact definition should be but how I see art, is as an exploration of what it is to be human.

Dark Souls excels not just as a piece of art but also as a technology - such as innovative gameplay elements, level design and resource optimisations. But overall, Dark Souls impresses the most as a work of art and I'll talk mostly about this aspect, but mention some technical bits towards the end.

Examples from the game

While all games in the 'SoulsBourne' series are great, I feel Dark Souls (part 1) is the best and I will take it as an example. Demon Souls came out before Dark Souls 1 but i haven't been able to play it since it's a Playstation exclusive. At this point in time however, it is generally considered that Dark Souls is a more fleshed out version of Demon Souls (which had limited budget and scope due to the publisher Sony being difficult to convince, as the game seemed too risky and expertimental) and so Dark Souls 1 should be a better representation of what the series is about.

A unique thing about Dark Souls is how the story is not really handed out to the player to easily understand and you've to put in some effort to really figure out what's going on, and even then you mostly only get hints and not a clear narrative. It's a fresh approach to storytelling in an age where mainstream games and even movies are filled with exposition to the brim, with characters explaining the story to the viewer all the time. The game encourages you to have your own interpretations of the story including moral implications, while possibly maintaining an actual version of the story in the lead designer Miyazaki's head (though this isn't spelt out anywhere). Apparently, this method of storytelling is inspired by Miyazaki's childhood experience of reading western fiction while not fully understanding English and thus him having to make up some stories himself to fill in the gaps of what he did not understand.

It's a little difficult to talk about Dark Souls without spoilers so the section ahead will have spoilers which are hidden by default, reveal them if you've already played the game or 100% sure you will not. Any text that you dont have to press a button to reveal will not spoil the story or key gameplay elements.

The following are aspects that I feel make Dark Souls a great work of art and a great game in general- doing things in a different or better way compared to most other games and/or other forms or art.

1. You are not the Hero at any point : In Dark Souls (DS hereafter), you are what is called a 'undead' which is pretty much a zombie, due to a curse and hence can never die. You start off locked up in an asylum since undead tend to go crazy because of staying alive for too long. The world around is called Lordran, filled with harsh enemies since the world is a bit fucked up at this point in time. There is no real backstory to your character and the only backstory that the game gives in its intro which gives some vague history about the world and how light is fading from it - I'll talk more about that later. There is nothing unique about you that makes you the hero of the story- even the fact that you're undead isn't a unique thing as you see plenty of undead around you, both inside and outside the asylum.

This means that the characters you meet dont care about you and consider you useless - they might even give you false advice is some cases. In terms of power, you dont have any extra power or skills compared to the enemies or other characters you come across, and as a result you will have to become fairly good at combat in the game to even stand a chance. The game is difficult and if you give up at any point (a lot of people do) it's pretty realistic as the undead character in the fictional world of DS would likely do the same as well. I first played DS around 6 years back and gave up within a week. I picked it up again a couple of years back after finishing Dark Souls 3 (DS3) and still found it too difficult and gave up. Third time was the charm as I started and finished the game at the time of lockdown due to Covid 19. In spite of the difficulty, the game never feels cheap and almost all of your deaths are due to clear mistakes that you made. There are plenty of people who can go through the entire game without taking a single hit from enemies.

Most people live their life not being the center of attention of the whole world (unlike the protagonist in say Skyrim or Mass Effect or Witcher- to a lesser extent) and so it's nice that a game, which is by design expected to make you feel good since you're paying for it - has the courage to reflect this aspect of realisem this in its setting for a change. There are plenty of NPCs (Non Playable Characters) who are heroes of their own stories in this world and if they told the story from their point of view, you could even be the villain in several of those stories.

Siegmeyer (NPC) for example has a storyline that is pretty separate from the protagonists' and you may not even notice what happens to Siegmeyer if you dont visit the areas he does such as Ash Lake which is an optional and hidden area. Your actions can affect Siegmeyer to the extent of killing him. Similarly, the character Queelag has a huge backstory and is generally a good character, but appears to be hostile to the player as she guards an area to protect her disabled sister (again, in a nearby optional and hidden area) from enemies.

In DS, you can become a pretty powerful character towards the end of the game but at no point are you a true hero - no matter what choices you make during the game (knowingly or unknowingly) none of the endings suggest that you're this hero who saved the world. You can interpret the endings in such a way that you are the hero but there is no objective truth to this. Unlike how some movies/novels/games present a clear cut protagonist who is the clear cut hero.
A lot of characters around you tell you about a prophecy that someone from the undead asylum will travel the world and link the first flame - it can thus make a player who is less observant think that he is the hero all along. However, this is likely a prophecy made up by the Gwyn/ other gods so that someone would help keep them in power. Killing Gwyn at the end of the game is not the right or wrong thing to do, it's just something that seems to have to be done, and something that Gwyn himself wants so that a worthy successor can light the flame and prolong the age of fire - I'll talk about that later along with the morality in this game.

Fighting weakened characters like Gwyn (old and weak), Kalameet (cannot fly due to an arrow) and Artorias (who is corrupted, has lost a hand and a shield and still manages to absolutely smack you into pieces) manages to still be very challenging and thus you never really feel like you're all powerful even after beating the toughest enemies, thanks to the backstory and the lore which hint that these characters have been more powerful before and probably unbeatable at their peak power.

2.There is no handholding: Almost all mainstream games start off with elaborate tutorials and give you clear directions as to what you have to do next. These games typically have detailed maps visible at all times that give you an idea of the broader world while games these days go to the extent of adding a large arrow on the sceen to point to exactly where you have to go. From GTA games to Skyrim this has become the new normal. Some of the older games did this better - Morrowind would require you to talk to a lot of people or read secret books to find out how to reach specific areas. DS takes this to another level - it has no in game map, plus it gives you very vague directions on what you have to do/where you have to go if at all any and exploring such a world is more of an adventure without quest markers, detailed journals (you're an undead zombie - why would you maintain a journal) and maps. Coupled with the fact that you are not recognised as a hero, no one really bothers to give you any directions, except a couple of merchants who will give you minor tips only if you buy stuff from them (although this is something you have to figure out yourself). In spite of a seemingly difficult to navigate world, clever world design makes exploration not only feasible but also rewarding.

In addition to this, DS has my favourite implementation of death in any game and death is has been 'gamified' into a game mechanic (Bioshock also has a great system where death is a game mechanic). Due to being cursed and hence being 'undead', you do not die permanently in the game but respawn at the nearest bonfire that you rested at. This avoids having to load games or using quicksave which are completely immersion breaking in games. While respawning you lose all the 'souls' that you gained by killing enemies although the game gives you one last chance to retrieve them if you reach the place you died. This is a great risk-reward mechanic and forces you to carefully consider going to more difficult areas when you're holding onto a lot of souls (souls are used for everything from leveling up your character to buying items and upgrading equipment) . While there is no permanent death, the game suggests to you that going 'hollow inside' or giving up on life is basically the equivalent of dying if you're undead (probably after repeated failures of getting anything done). The real life equivalent would be of you stopping playing the game after giving up.

The optional side quests in this game have great backstories but most of it isn't evident unless you pay close attention. They're mostly difficult to do (unlike for eg. a quest in Witcher 3 where if I remember correctly, a lady needs a pan from her house while standing just outside) and without quest markers, difficult to figure out even how to do. For example, some NPC might ask you to save their loved one who got lost in some area (sometimes the area will be unknown) but just finding out how to go about this can be a huge challenge and it makes sense because if it was as easy as going somewhere are beating a few weak enemies most characters might just do this themselves or the rewards wouldn't be high. Rewarding the player to follow the quest marker and pressing a button seems a bit insulting to me, and so the DS method where you can go through the whole game without even knowding there were sidequests in the game, is refreshing.

The game starts off with you meeting the crestfallen warrior within the first hour or so who tells you about two bells that you can ring. One church bell which is high above and another one in the depths of 'Blighttown'. There are no further directions as to where these bells are and how to get them. You are not told what the bells do. In fact talking to the crestfallen warrior is optional as well - a few players wouldnt have noticed him or wouldnt have talked to him enough to get this dialogue, although his placement is designed in a way that encourages us to see him and talk to him. Heck, even after finishing the game some players wouldnt know exactly what the bells do - they are called bells of awakening because they wake up an ancient sleeping serpent called Frampt whose purpose it is to help you (or others like you who ring the bell) fulfill a prophecy related to Lord Gwyn.

There are multiple paths that you can take at this point in the game and more than half of them are wrong, in the sense that those are areas that have enemies so difficult that even if you do somehow progress a long way in a particular 'wrong' direction, it could become near impossible to return, especially for those new to the game. Similar to how I talked about the deaths that you have being mostly fair and due to your mistakes, the game does a fair job of guiding you to paths that have easier enemies. On my first playthrough, I made it to the church bell without any major issues as this was clearly the easiest path for me and as far as I can tell, the intended path for someone who plays the game for the first time. Thus there's some common sense required here - if you die a 1000 times while trying to make even small progress in a particular direction, dont keep trying and choose the one where you only have to die 10 times to make a bit of progress.

You can kill all NPCs in the game pretty much, even those who are absolutely crucial to you. Andre the blacksmith who is the only blacksmith available in the game for most types of weapons, is easy to find due to his hammer being loud enough to be heard from the area above which you'll almost definitely come across naturally. Killing him early would make the game more difficult since weapon/armor/shield upgrades (which are more important than leveling up your character) wouldn't be possible for a significant part of the game. But the game doesn't hold you back and lets to kill him if you were stupid enough to kill this old man who sold you a bunch of stuff and upgraded your weapons and armor, no questions asked. For money ('souls') of course, but this is still the best kind of character you find in the world of DS. He drops his hammer upon death and its item description in game hints that you've made a mistake "Metal hammer of Andre of Astora, blacksmith at the Old Church. Can be used as a strike weapon, but better left in the hands of its talented owner". Killing him or some of the other key characters doesn't make the game impossible for you, bit it does make the progress significantly more difficult

Which leads me into my next point

3. You learn the best through your own experience : As in real life, most of the things you learn are from trying and failing, including combat skills and navigation of the world around. The best dark souls players are those who have tried the maximum number of things in the game and possibly failed the most as well when initially trying out things. Some learn slow while others learn faster but ultimately with enough experience (moderate and ability to learn), you will improve for sure.

Learning what attacks enemies use and their strengths and weaknesses is important to beat them. When it comes to learning and adapting to enemy attacks - this is something that goes into your subconscious without you even realising it. After fighting a number of similar enemies you can easily beat them with the knowledge of how they fight. After a while you will be good enough to face new enemies you've never faced before and beat them on the first try itself by carefully observing how they move and attack.

You can feel a slow progression of how the combat and the world become more familiar to you and so you become stronger as you progress. While this is true for some other games I feel that most games have to induce an artificial feeling of growth in skill in the player by making you very powerful through items and attributes which you get through progression of your character in the game rather than the player himself/herself. In Skyrim, you get level your character and weapons so much that combat becomes trivial towards the end. Witcher games do this better and stats matter a bit less compared to Skyrim and you actually have to be decent at combat. Dark Souls does it the best. You can beat the game with starting stats for your character and the starting weapon if you're good enough at the game and even if you level up stuff - they dont become so strong as to make the combat trivial - you will still probably die. Reading guides and walkthroughs will make the game easier but never trivial - ultimately you need to learn through your own experience to progress.

Apart from having to learn and counter enemy attack patterns and weaknesses, there are lots of examples of having to learn the environment as well- The first time you see the Hellkite drake guarding a tower at the end of a bridge, you try to run across the bridge, only to get burned from the fire and die. After a few attempts of looking around you see a shortcut at the middle of the bridge which takes you to one level below and through a safer path to the end of the bridge and behind the drake.

4. What you know is what your character knows and gameplay is (pretty much) the story: This is something a lot of works of fiction get wrong. In games like Witcher and Mass Effect, you feel like you're observing the world as an outsider at certain points in the story because there are so many things that the protagonist is supposed to know in his world, that you as someone playing a video game does not know. Witcher 1 takes care of this partly by making Geralt lose all his memory at the beginning of the game, but it's far from a perfect way to do things and as time goes on you can be pretty detached from the story while your in game protagonist Geralt seems to know exactly what is going on - even throwing in some exposition himself at times to help you get on a level field in terms of understanding the story.

But compared to Witcher and Mass Effect, there are games which handle this issue really well - the Elder Scrolls series, including the latest entry Skyrim does a great job of making sure that you, the protagonist does not have any real backstory at all - you start off in a dungeon and escape for the first time as the game begins. This means that you learn stuff about the world mostly together with the in-game protagonist. But again, as the game progresses there is a divergence between you and the protagonist and there would be so many things going on in the game world (you travel cities, meet hundreds of people etc.) that it isn't possible to know exactly as much as your protagonist in the game. There was one time when I stopped playing Skyrim for a few months and came back and did not really know anything much about the game world but still managed to do stuff and finish the game thanks to quest markers which tell you where to go and what to do next. No exactly helping immersion here.

There's really no game which makes you the protagonist quite like DS. Before the game starts you are locked up in a dungeon similar to the Elder Scrolls series. You can choose from a few options what you want your character background to be (thief/knight etc) but this has almost no consequence on the gameplay except a few starting items and almost seems to be poking fun at other games (Fallout 3 is a great example) where you can decide your character's abilities to make them super strong in certain areas even before the game starts, as a baby in the case of Fallout 3. As a person playing the game, you have all the knowledge that the protagonist has and there's nothing extra that the protagonist knows (he/she doesnt really know anything by himself/herself) that you don't. There is no exposition in which your character (or other non-playable-characters) explain what is going on. Even when NPCs do, its false information half of the time. You character mostly communicates with other characters through his/her actions and not words. The most that you get to say in any situation is a yes or a no OR what item you want to buy from a merchant. This seems realistic as well since most of the characters are hostile towards the player anyway and even those who seem friendly can be reasonably expected to be trying to cheat the player. Why would the protagonist even want to talk more with these characters then?

The character 'Patches' being an excellent example.

Any knowledge of the game world, its characters and location, shortcuts, history of the world and what to do for a better future are gained by you, the player as you play the game. You're not simply playing a section of the game to get to the next cutscene where others come and explain what is going on. And because of this, different people playing the game will have different experiences : they wouldn't have been to the same locations (note that some locations are hidden and you could miss then completely, as I also have), spoken to the same characters, or simply paid enough attention to things in general. This is not to say that there isn't a real story. All characters in the game, all locations and even objects have a deep history and a clear reason for why they are the way they are - eventhough you may not be able to see all of it while playing the game once or twice - like if real life where the story of your life is your own and these isn't any exposition to tell you what's going on. The story and lore of DS are arguably more vast than those of any of the other games I mention here. There are extremely large youtube channels (example of VaatiVidya) dedicated to simply explaining the story of DS - but you dont need all that to enjoy the story when you play. The same way you dont need to understand quantum mechanics or molecular biology or human psychology to enjoy real life - but having that extra bit of depth makes things more interesting for sure.

Let me really try to drive this point home with one last example. Lets say you started playing the following modern open world games (or their sequels) at the same point in time - Bioshock, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls 4 or 5, Witcher, Assasins Creed, Fallout 3 or later, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto and lastly DS 1. After playing these games for a few months and spending lets say 10-15 hours in each game you decide to stop playing and gift the game along with their progress to your brother so that he can complete them. You brother has played a few games before but is by no means a veteran gamer or anything. All the other games apart from DS would be a breeze to take over from someone else's save file (thanks to journals, quest markers and what not), but DS would be near (although not exactly) impossible. Your brother would mostly have to spend time travelling through all the places you've already travelled and get an understanding of how the world is structured. If you really do want to try doing this experiment, I would recommend that you leave your brother in either

(a) Ash Lake without killing the Hydra there and without ringing either bell of awakening OR
(b) End of Tomb of giants without ringing either bell of awakening
I cannot imagine him survive the ordeal and will likely never touch DS, and possibly any other game again. A lack of understanding of the game mechanics and story background makes this impossible for him - the same way that in real life if you put the mind of a random kid in say an athlete's or a politicians body, things wouldn't exact be business as usual for the kid.

Now this isn't to say that the design of the game makes progress difficult

The game does a great job of designing the world and its characters guide you in a way that isn't forced - having the crestfallen warrior explain the two bells at the beginning of the game and once this is done, you can see Frampt who along with Gwynevere's illusion in Anor Londo guide you on what has to be done next, if you wanted to help them. (Although this isn't something you need to do and you can do the exact opposite of what they want by siding with Darkstalker Kaathe and I didn't even know this was an option until I completed the game and linked the flame and decided to google about other possible endings.)

Now, being fully in sync with the protagonist of the story isn't really something thats required in other forms of art (I'm a big fan of this style if you couldn't tell by now) but it definitely helps in detective stories. One detective movie that does a great job of giving you and the protagonist a level playing field in guessing the criminal is 'Knives Out'. (Spoilers for the movie : ) You as the viewer are given almost all the information required to guess who the criminal might be and this is done in a brilliantly progressive way. The culprit seems to obviously be someone until you get additional information and its someone else altogether. I did manage to successfully guess who the murderer was well before the movie ended and it felt really satisfying to do this. Compare this to 'Sherlock' the TV series in which is is impossible to guess anything about any mystery because the protagonist always has more information than you have. And the lazy explanation for this is that Sherlock is a genius who notices things that you dont. Watson is there to give you some sort of exposition but it's rarely enough to be helpful for you to proactively solve a mystery, rather to understand how it was solved by a genius.

5. There are tradeoffs to everything; There are neither heroes/villains nor good/evil: I hate stories where a villain exists for the sake of being a villain, devoid of any backstory. In Skyrim for example, an ancient evil dragon is prophecised to destroy the world and your job is to kill it and save the world.

Batman comics do a brilliant job at giving a background story to every 'villain' in its stories - while you can't entirely empathise with the villains, you can for a large part understand how they ended up as villlains. As an example, Poison Ivy has good the good intentions of restoring nature but goes overboard with the idea to the extent that she devalues the life of humans in favour of those of plants and animals - it seems evil but in a world as harsh as Gotham City you probably need to go a little overboard if you want to get anything done at all.

The morality of DS is probably the most realistic I've seen across games. Unlike games like Mass Effect and Fallout (clear moral choices with expected results), Skyrim (slightly less clear moral choices but with expected results), Witcher (fairly unclear moral choices with unexpected results), DS approaches morality the best by not even considering morality in choices.

In DS, it's difficult for you to even judge after the results of a decision are clear whether it was absolutely the right decision. Although most people would have their interpretation of right and wrong choices, there is no absolute truth in this. It's kind of like asking the question - is capitalism (which favours the individual) or communism (which favours the group) the right choice? There is no right choice here and what we see is that a system that is in between both is probably the best. Similarly, liberal and conservative values are not absolutely good or bad - we need a mix of both.

There are plenty of metaphors in the game to aid you in making decisions, amidst all this moral grayness. Linking the flame could be a metaphor for a mixture of sustaining life/capitalism/conservatism/doing one's duty, whereas the opposite could be a mixture of communism/exercising free will/liberalism.

While it's great to have gray morality systems in games to reflect real life and the different tradeoffs, it's important that we value certain fundamental good and condemn fundamental evil. There are people and gods in DS who kill children and experiment on women to deform and dehumanise them to make themselves more powerful. Characters such as this help us maintain a sense of good and evil and guide our decisions in a world which is mostly gray in morality otherwise.

The biggest example of amorality of choices is in the two endings of the game. It's not really clear whether kindling the first flame is a good or a bad thing in an absolute sense and it is up to you to interpret this decision. Neither decision seems to be completely right or completely wrong but is somewhere in between.
Kingseeker Frampt along with Gwyndolin and the illusion of Gwynevere have a selfish agenda in keeping the age of fire going on as it keeps them in power. In fact the prophecy that an undead from the asylum (eg. someone like you) will travel the world of Lordran to kill the gods, become more powerful and then kindle the first flame is most likely made up by Gwyn and others in Anor Londo in order to extend the age of fire and keep the gods in Anor Londo in power for longer by encouraging undead from the asylum, who have nothing in life to look forward to otherwise to embark on this adventure and help them in this cause.

Similarly, Darkstalker Kaathe wants an age of dark where he will be in power. As we see in New Londo and Oolacile, Kaathe generally brings corruption, darkness and death to wherever he goes. That's not to say that that he will bring bad things to the world in the future as well - especially in an age of dark across all of Lordran and things could be different.

Going with Frampt is the conservative choice and keeps the status quo for most part (though you have to die for this) while Kaathe is the liberal choice and gives a chance to the age of dark.

Also, throughout the game you are forced to fight and/kill several characters who haven't really done any wrong. Queelag as mentioned earlier is safeguarding her dying sister while you come around and kill her ; The wolf Sif doesnt really want to fight you but tries to stop you from progressing into the Abyss and possibly getting into danger thus fighting you and dying ; Artorias is corrupted by the Abyss and fights you without really knowing who you are and what he's doing. Also there are several smaller enemies such as the mushroom kids whom you feel sorry for having to kill to progress.

6. Innovations in game design and mechanics: DS improved upon a lot of game mechanics/design elements that existed before it and invented a few new ones as well.

The stamina bar which balances how you much you can walk, run, dodge, block, cast spells and attack within a set amount of time is an incredible resource which was probably used for the first time extensively in an action RPG game (outside of the Demon Souls, the humble previous entry in the series). The result is a very balanced fighting system, so much so that the online PvP scene is going strong to this day.

The estus flask method of healing which gives you a finite number of heals from bonfire to bonfire (these are save points) is a brand new concept and so are bonfires themselves. These are game mechanics that fit perfectly into the lore of the game and do not seem out of place. Estus flasks (which are filled with fire, a metaphor for life in this game) are refilled at bonfires.

There are no loading screens in DS and to achieve this is an amazing technical feat for game of this scope. This is done through clever use of elevators, foliage etc. in a way that never seems artificial.

There is a huge variety of weapons (almost all of which are viable) along with a nice mixture of casting magic and enchantments which help create a combat system that is a thousand times better than other Action RPGs of this decade, including Skyrim and Witcher. The combat is realistic in the sense that fighting multiple enemies using swords or arrows is very difficult as in real life - even when taking on relatively weaker enemies.

The level design is very organic. You find enemies in places you'd expect them to be in terms of a natural setting- for example 'tree-like' enemies in the forest and 'sword and shield wielding' enemies in towns/towers. Enemies and the setting play a huge role in 'environmental storytelling' wherein you get an idea about the history of a place just by exploring and observing.

Although the world is very open and you're not generally told where exactly to go to get to the end of an area, clever use of verticality in levels makes progress intuitive. Also, the way shortcuts are implemented in this game is incredible. Shortcuts help the curious and creative explorers avoid repetition of sections of the game without using bonfires (which are checkpoints) and are an even more organic way to implement save points than bonfires in a large interconnected world. This is something that took the developer so much time and effort to design that they gave up this type of design altogether for future games. Heck, they couldn't even bother to design shortcuts in the second half of DS with the same quality as they did in the first - the level design and interconnected world of the first half of DS is something that may not be superceded at all.

For instance, at the start of the game you're told that there is a bell above in the undead church and one down below. Although you dont know how to go up or down or where to start, once you've decided you've to go up- you do eventually get there due to the way levels are designed. This sets the stage for future areas as well - It's clear that you've to go down in Catacombs, Demon Ruins, 'Oolacile' etc. and that you've to go up in places like 'Sen's Fortress'. Clever level design helps communciate this message from the level designer to the player, in a natural way.

7. All the other stuff I can't here/cant recollect/haven't discovered: There are youtube channels which uncover story and game world details to this day and help revise and refine previous understandings. For example, the last dark souls story/secret related video from 'VaatiVidya' which has around 1.5M subscribers came out recently. The first one came a full seven years back in 2013, 2 years after the game's release.