Myth, ideology and utopia in Dark Souls

This article explores how Dark Souls ’s complex narrative and its approach to in-game myths enable the analysis of myth as sacred stories as well as ideological discourse that reproduces dominant ways of being. The argument uses a sociology of knowledge approach to ideology to illuminate the specific ways in which myth is showcased in the first Dark Souls game. Specifically, the article shows how, on an average playthrough, myth and prophecy are first perceived as a sacred story that seeks to reunite myth and reality following traditional understandings of myth and rite in Mircea Eliade and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Then, through highlighting an encounter with a hidden in-game character, the relation between sacred myth and reality is shown to be revealed to always have been underlain by ideology. This journey casts light on the way myth functions as ideology in reproducing an arbitrary social order that is naturalized and taken for granted, and how, through playing the game, players’ epistemological relation to truth and lie, myth and reality, may be challenged. Finally, the article further reinforces the notion that Dark Souls affords the player the quality of being a bricoleur in the way gameplay and narrative are implemented, empowering the player as an active force in making sense of the digital in-game world and, potentially, the real social world around them.