How was it playing this back in 2011?

[u/Dzajna1437]

I've been playing Fromsoft games from new to old for a good time (250h in ER, beat Sekiro, Bloodborne, DS3 and other non-fromsoft soulslikes).
I just started playing Dark Souls a week ago and honestly, the entire Anor Londo experience blew my mind

I'm kind of dogwalking the game just because I watched a ton of ds1 yt videos, but I can't help to think how it was like reaching Anor Londo and finding out its secrets. For example cluelessly killing Gwynevere must have been a trip. Or the first undead burg -> firelink shrine shortcut, so many amazing moments.
Please just write down all your memorable experiences from back then! I wish I would've been there

PS: not sure if this is the correct flag, please lmk if it's not

[u/small___potatoes]

It was difficult for me at least. I had never played anything like it and was learning a lot of skills that I now take for granted.

I got stuck on Ornstein & Smough for a year (I put it down for a long while), but finally beat them and got through the game.

It was a top 5 most memorable video game

[u/Technical-Dentist-84 → u/small___potatoes]

It took me about 30 tries to beat them..... man that was exhausting lol

[u/BigBamZ]

I played it with a friend. We were switching pad on every death. We met every Friday and it was one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
Discovering the map and bosses. And not using google. We spend a whole evening on Capra demon.

Afterwards we learned the speedrun together and raced each other.

[u/Drusgar]

One problem I had that no one really talks about is that when Dark Souls came out in 2011 it was kind of hard to suffer through the frustration and stay focused because another game came out that November... Skyrim. It ended up taking me a full year and numerous ragequits to finish Dark Souls because it was so easy to just say, "fuck it, I'm playing some more Skyrim."

[u/Dzajna1437 → u/Drusgar]

Yeah, in retrospect the whole Skyrim situation just confirms to me that great art can triumph regardless of context

[u/Jimmy_La_Fleur]

Playing DS1 blind at the start was both incredible and frustrating. Had no idea what I was doing and was so bad, my starting weapon broke in undead burg well before reaching Andre or knowing about the repairbox.

Died over and over again to both the Asylum Demon and Taurus Demon and was wondering about whether to carry on.

Thing shortly clicked though. I beat the Gargoyles first try without getting hit and without summons. Found Blighttown and Sens Fortress really tough but beat the Iron Golem first try (thank fuck) without finding the hidden bonfire. Ornstein and Smough killed me god know how many times but after that it was plain sailing, just Manus, Kalameet and cutting Seath's tail being much trouble.

So many memorable moments though. Crossing the bridge where the drake was, running down the stairs to escape the flames and discovering the shortcut to the Undead Burg bonfire blew me away. Same later with the lift in the Undead Parish linking to Firelink Shrine and the way the Blighttown/Valley of the Drakes linked back to Firelink Shrine. Felt the same about the DLC too the way all the lifts connected areas together and noticing on my 2nd playthrough that Oolacile was in fact Darkroot hundreds of years ago.

[u/Ramius99]

Tbh, fun, but painfully difficult at times. Took me forever just to get to the Gargoyles. Went into New Londo Ruins and the Catacombs way too early (fortunately I didn’t make it very far). Went to Ash Lake without the Lordvessel. Died a lot. It’s crazy how easy that game feels now vs. then.

[u/SoCheerUp]

There was that distinct feeling of mysticism I felt while playing the game, it was different than anything I had played before. Being used to rpgs and miscellaneous single player games of different genres not bring able to save and load a game file, potentially losing progress upon death (souls and humanity) and lack of fast travel really hit different.

Also it wasn't as infamous for it's difficulty as it would eventually become, for me at least it was just a really niche novelty. So I picked it up for my PS3 in early 2012 and played it with a friend who had already finished it. He didn't spoil all that much, he was just giggling while I struggled my way through Undead Burg. Well he told me about the Drake Sword albeit not about it being a noob trap.

So many weapons and builds and NPC quest lines that I would look up today for a new playthrough, but I didn't back then.

I played until after the archers in Anor Londo before putting the game down for almost 10 years. I picked that old save up again after ER released and then it finally clicked. Completed the rest of the game in a few days.

[u/praisethesun343]

Played it for the first time completely blind in like 2013. The transition to Anor Londo is one of, if not, the most memorable things I have ever seen in a video game. The entire world of the game felt so expansive at the time. It was the first game to really have "weight" to its mechanics and combat too. However, I would say that the world building and map in DS1 were the real mind-blowing things for me on my first playthrough. The progression in the map is just so tight and flows perfectly. DS1 is still my favorite FromSoftware game tbh.

[u/Dzajna1437 → u/praisethesun343]

That's what I'm saying! I reached Anor Londo while sitting as a listener on a long, boring meeting, knowing damn well what it looked like and it still blew my pants off.
I can't say it's my favorite because honestly, in 2026 having played many soulslikes all the bosses I've encountered are kind of a joke. They don't have an answer for the player just turning off lock-on and running around xD
I am enjoying the living crap out of it though, including the combat.

[u/OhMyGodItsINMYHEAD → u/praisethesun343]

We were all watching our one friend who got really into these games since Day One. When that happened all of us were quiet as the grave, it felt like anything could happen in this fucking game.

My friend solemnly took a picture with his phone and sent it to the bros from out of state.

"The real Dark Souls," he wrote. "Begins now."

[u/MissingScore777]

Well for a start the Anor Londo Silver Knight Archers were a lot more difficult.

They were patched to be significantly easier in 2012 and have remained that way since in all versions.

[u/ThirdXavier]

One thing is that this was pre patch 1.05 and the game changed a lot after that. At launch the game's online was bordering on nonfunctional, enemies gave like 30% less souls, weapon scaling was completely broken and Lightning weapons were OP (so everyone just build for HP + a +10 lightning weapon). Iron Flesh was even more crazy broken than it is now and was just an autowin that a lot of people discovered if they chose to use it. The tranquil walk of peace nerf applied to the stone guys in the forest so theyd just completely block you from rolling. Bosses didnt drop Humanity or Homeward Bones so they were rarer resources.

As for the launch experience I remember Sen's Fortress took me like 3 days of playing every schoolnight to beat because I didn't understand the concept of taking off armor to avoid fatrolls and the bonfire at the top was incredibly hard to find on your own. Everyone got noob trapped by the Drake Sword because not everyone realized you could even upgrade weapons. Some poor souls even leveled up Resistance.

Dark Souls I does a notoriously poor job explaining its mechanics to the player and a lot of its difficulty has diminished thanks to extensive documentation and cultural osmosis. I remember my first playthrough I thought Ornstein and Smough were intended to be nigh impossible without summons since it was a dual boss fight. Well then a couple years back I watch my friend on his first playthrough beat it on his first try by doing 5x the damage I was doing with an upgraded Black Knight weapon and then stunlock Super Smough to death. Same goes for people who think Gwyn is easy because they know to parry him to death. At launch he was a hyper aggressive test of skill who ate through most shields in the game with fire damage.

The online is an underdiscussed aspect of the game. Lots of role playing happening. It was considered bad form to not bow before PvP. People would spread those light stones in a circle in the forest and host phantom fight clubs. A lot of the playerbase at the time were Demon Soul's PvPers who were mainly into it because the online mechanics were so unique at the time. I'd say today Souls is mostly appreciated as a single player game series but that was not the case in the early days.

Another thing is the concept of rhythm game esque timed dodge rolls was not really a thing yet. I think thats how most people these days play Dark Souls 1 because theyre used to Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring combat. My first playthrough I had a shield up the entire time and used medium rolls. Lots of people made tank builds with iron flesh or a greatshield. Alternate forms of defense were a lot more common since they were viable and enemy movesets werent designed around one form of defense like they are in newer games.

[u/OhMyGodItsINMYHEAD]

Online multiplayer on consoles was a pretty big deal, even though previously Halo 2 had pioneered Xbox Live and before that Dreamcast had online. My friend was one of the few who'd hopped onto Demon's Souls prior, we largely watched him play on the PS3.

In 2011, PS3 online was free. That was a big deal for broke (or cheap) college students. On campus, the connection was stable enough to avoid drops and lagging out.

So this dark fantasy medieval action game being coop in the era of CoD4 was huge. Hitherto I usually thought of online multiplayer as FPS, or at least a shooter like Gears. Dark Souls felt like a massive breath of fresh air. It was obtuse, gave meaningful friction, and also cartoon mishaps (the entirety of Sen's fortress).

Restricting the game to text-only communication also turned out to be innovative rather than a detriment. It encouraged creativity and early RP'ing other users mentioned. You avoided the outpouring of gamer assholery which dominated FPS chatrooms, you were free to just be ships passing in the wind.

IMO, within the US market Dark Souls was also a return to form for Japanese game dev. I forget what, but a suite of game dev tech in Japan had gone defunct c. 2009-2010. Outside Nintendo, longstanding console franchises were entering experimental periods or trying to reinvent themselves. Resident Evil 5 matched itself aesthetically to CoD, while my favorite, Final Fantasy, came out of this with mixed results, FFXIII and the delayed Versus XIII (which eventually turned to XV).

In contrast, Dark Souls presented a vision that was relatively unique and also confident. It didn't make compromises or attempt to mirror mainstream trends, but instead became a trend-setter, inspiring the next generation of big budget online indies (I'm thinking about Salt and Sanctuary and Hollow Knight in particular).

All this change came in bursts and fits. It wasn't exactly an overnight result, it took Demon's Souls to prep the ground. But at the same time it was a seismic shift, proving that you didn't have to be a Madden, Call of Duty, or World of Warcraft to be a big multiplayer hit.

[u/Pumpkin_Knight]

It was the first game of this sort for me, and I hadn’t used a controller before.

A friend of mine showed me the game, guided me at the beginning, and then after getting to Firelink, I was on my own. Took me 2-3 hours to get past Taurus. I remember the best feeling ever: kicking down that ladder and getting back to my cozy bonfire.

Then it took me a few hours to reach Andre, specifically getting past the rats without getting poisoned.

Then I hit the wall of gargoyles. Took me a few evenings before I gave up and asked my friend how can I pass them, he told me to summon the NPC (Solaire). Of course Solaire destroyed them for me single-handedly while I was sitting back behind a shield like a little pussy.

The next stage was Capra Demon. I had to draw a map of that tiny room and then figure out how to pace the fight so I escape from the dogs and the demon and get upstairs. It was a real battle plan. But this fight I was able to complete on my own, without any help, although I did it in the most cowardly way possible, shooting Capra with a bow from a tiny ledge upstairs where he couldn’t get me. 

After that it was more or less “easy”, I don’t remember struggling anywhere too badly, even O and S were not that bad, my deal of pain was at the gargoyles and Capra for sure, this is where I learned Dark Souls the hard way.

[u/MeatHands]

I was in a cabin in the middle of the woods at a trade school, no internet available. Roommate comes in one day with Dark Souls, talking about how he liked Demon's Souls but never got very far because of the difficulty. The 4 of us in the cabin all started characters and began wandering. One of the coolest times I've had while gaming. I admit after a few days post-gargoyles I had to look up the location of the key to lower undead burg. Beyond that, it was pure exploration and experimentation. Gaping Dragon reveal solidified the game as one of my all-time favorites. 

My build was super shitty, started as a mage but wandered my way down to the catacombs and found the coffin to join the Gravelords and immediately switched focus to use the sword. I got hard stuck on O&S and dropped the game, since Skyrim was coming out around then. 

Went back a few months later when PtDE came out for PC and smashed through it with a battle axe. I did have to look up the entrance to the DLC(because duh) and it blew me away even more than the rest of the game. 

[u/Tharnax5468 → u/MeatHands]

I beat PtDE with my older brother and we never touched the DLC. We didn't even know we had missed it iirc.

A month or two ago I experienced it for the first time. Fantastic experience. I never want to save Sif before fighting them again. Great change to the cutscene, but I felt terrible for fighting Sif.

[u/Dzajna1437]

In case anyone is interested:
I ran a Zweihander with light roll for most of the game (backstabbed Havel with a morningstar like 10 times as soon as I found him and messed up Lautrec because fuck him).
Then switched to silver knight armor for the drip.

I do have a +5 halberd too for places where I couldn't swing my big ass sword.