On Soulsring Worlds: Narrative Complexity, Digital Communities, and Interpretation in Dark Souls and Elden Ring (Routledge Advances in Game Studies) - Softcover

Caracciolo, Marco

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032684011 ISBN 13: 9781032684017

Publisher: Routledge, 2025

Synopsis

The first book-length study devoted to FromSoftware games, On Soulsring Worlds explores how the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring are able to reconcile extreme difficulty in both gameplay and narrative with broad appeal.

Arguing that the games are strategically positioned in relation to contemporary audiences and designed to tap into the new forms of interpretation afforded by digital media, the author situates the games vis-à-vis a number of current debates, including the posthuman and the ethics of gameplay. The book delivers an object lesson on the value of narrative (and) complexity in digital play and in the interpretive practices it gives rise to.

Cross-fertilizing narrative theory, game studies, and nonhuman-oriented philosophy, this book will appeal to students and scholars of game studies, media studies, narratology, and video game ethnography.

About this title

About the Author

Marco Caracciolo is Associate Professor of English and Literary Theory at Ghent University in Belgium. Drawing inspiration from cognitive science, the philosophy of mind, and the environmental humanities, his work explores the forms of experience afforded by narrative in literary fiction and video games. He is the author of several books, including most recently Contemporary Narrative and the Spectrum of Materiality (2023).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032684011
• ISBN 13: 9781032684017
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 130