Enjoying the Uncertainty. How Dark Souls Performs Incompleteness Through Narrative, Level Design and Gameplay

Abstract

The application of the Theory of Information to the works of art can show why incompleteness and ambiguity offer a more engaging experience to readers and users. But when ambiguity becomes a deliberate strategy of the work, it becomes difficult to understand how to interpret it: in this article I argue that the correct way to interpret a work that makes incompleteness the rule of its poetics is to analyze how that strategy is conveyed throughout its basic grammar, without trying to solve the puzzles and contradictions that incompleteness and ambiguity inevitably produce. This is a relevant issue in the videogame Dark Souls as the basic elements of its grammar, level design, gameplay mechanics and narrative, offer the player the experience of incompleteness in different ways. In this article, I explain how the strategy of incompleteness works in Dark Souls and propose a framework for a Zen-wise interpretation of the game mechanics.