VaatiVidya’s Speculations on Dark Souls 2

If you know anything about the Dark Souls community, you’ll know they spend half their time not playing the game at all, but instead pooling their knowledge of the game on YouTube, forums, and wikis to break down all of the nooks and crannies of the intricate world. That isn’t a criticism, in fact I think of it as one of the greatest phenomena this generation has produced. Newer publishers might be trying desperately to blend social media and games, but Dark Souls did it effortlessly years ago, and there are huge expanses of the game that most players would probably never know about were it not for tip-sharing amongst the community (Ash Lake, anyone?).

Anyway, those familiar with the big YouTubers of the Dark Souls community may have heard of VaatiVidya, an Australian uploader best known for the ‘Prepare To Cry’ series which delved into the tragic tales of the game’s many NPCs. But with Dark Souls 2 just around the corner, his speculations on the lore of the second game are fascinating. To outsiders it might seem presumptuous to make so many claims based on a handful of item descriptions, but that’s just one of the mysterious ways in which the Souls worlds work.