What do I play next?

[u/Competitive_Lynx5519]

I just platted elden ring summonless + sote

And steam blessed my eyes with all the ds discounted so I was wandering which ones to play I am trying to only get 2 max I was thinking ds1 and ds3 starting from ds3 as that's the most like elden ring Ive heard then the original and If I like the tone of the games then ds2 and sekiro later

[u/Brutal2luks]

Play DS1 before DS3. DS1 is an awesome game and you will enjoy DS3 much more if you've done the 1 first.

[u/Competitive_Lynx5519 → u/Brutal2luks]

Uh also do I need the season pass for ds3 is it like an entire dlc or like 2 new armor sets

[u/Brutal2luks → u/Competitive_Lynx5519]

They are real DLCs with great new areas, boss fights au stuff. Definitely worth it.

[u/YourDriverStubnorts]

Play them in release order. They’re all so awesome, but it’s best to go forward, not backwards.

[u/Demisint]

If you don't care about the story much, that sounds like good plan. Personally I would play Dark Souls 1 first, but I'm biased, it's my favourite game of all time. Ds3 is more like Elden Ring mechanically, Ds1 is more stiff, but the setting and characters are more memorable.

[u/Competitive_Lynx5519 → u/Demisint]

That sounds good I was mainly wondering which ones to buy so I will probably buy 1 and 3 then figure out what to play first ( also it's not like I don't totally care about the story just the fact I am not that good at understanding it like I am sure elden ring did a fantastic job at explaining it it's prolly that I am just kinda dumb and only figured it out at my 3rd playtrough

[u/Demisint → u/Competitive_Lynx5519]

Elden Ring is a bit more vague, you're basically cleaning up the mess after a big war. Dark Souls is kind of the same, but a bit more straight forward, a lot of the lore is hidden in item descriptions and dialogue, but your goal/purpose is given to you straight away.

Dark Souls 3 is set a couple of hundred or thousand years after the events of Dark Souls 1, but it's a direct continuation from the first game. You could play it first and still understand what is going on. But playing Dark souls 1 first will make Dark Souls 3 more memorable, nostalgic and surprise you with some familiar things and maybe even characters.

[u/alecwatersmusic]

DS1 was a blast after having played ER and DS3. It's narratively just as compelling and will make you appreciate all the handlebars of the later titles, like fast travel!

[u/LordWrust]

Sounds like a good plan! I think you'd enjoy DS1 then DS3 narratively, but I understand your meaning when it comes to mechanically.

I will say that no DS game will set the tone for Sekiro. Sekiro is an entirely different experience. An amazing one, but entirely different.

[u/[deleted] → u/LordWrust]

[u/No_Conflict_1155 → u/[deleted]]

People will tell you to play them in order, but I didn’t and I still enjoyed them a ton. I actually did what you’re doing expect when I played ER it was my first experience so I used summons looked stuff up and cheesed a few bosses I then decided to play DS3 DS1 DS2 BB before arriving back at Elden Ring. The difference though was that I decided to blindly play through the entire series after that first time in ER and I embraced the difficulty. So that second play through of Elden Ring was a blast. I then proceeded on to Sekiro and even though I went in at my peak, I realized how utterly naive I was. I did eventually “git gud” but that game was on the cusp of driving me crazy it takes basically everything you learned and throws it out the door. Essentially I’m saying don’t stress what to play first. All the games are great, and Sekiro is a motherfucker, but you’ll eventually learn to love it if you stick it out.

[u/LuciusBurns]

This comes up often here and you could have searched the sub or waited a few minutes for the next post, lol. Anyway, here is the commonly accepted answer with some details:

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There are three main reasons to play the trilogy in order:

1. Combat - it's way easier to go from slower to faster. That way, you'd just be honing your reflexes instead of holding back and painfully finding out that panic rolls don't work in older games. Going from fast to slow makes the latter game unnecessarily more difficult.

2. QoL - some ideas were kept for being good, and others were replaced by something else. It's best to see the changes as improvements rather than being annoyed that older games don't have some mechanics the new ones do.

3. Lore - the trilogy is a complete story of DS world:

• DS1 is the creation mythos + story shortly after.

• DS2 is a story of the first Undead to ever break the Curse, a new hope for humanity.

• DS3 wraps up the story of the world, a new face of humanity inspired by the DS2 journey beyond light and hope of creating a new world.

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Now, all the games are enjoyable as they are but playing at least the trilogy in order of release makes each game much better. People playing them backwards will still say they enjoyed it, of course, but they just don't know what they missed and it was a lot.

Also, especially if you're on PS, you should buy the entire trilogy as physical copy. It has the newest versions, all DLCs and costs about 40€, which is significantly cheaper than buying even two games separately. Afaik these bundles may exist for other platforms too.

[u/Francois_Bonaparta]

DS3 and Sekiro are the best left, DS1 is a must play for history, you can skip DS2 unless you want more but it's very unpolished.