The core set for Dark Souls: The Board Game takes players through two mini campaigns featuring enemies and bosses from the original Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3. By purchasing expansions, players can tackle Dark Souls 2‘s Iron Keep level, the Darkroot Basin from the original game, and a host of new Mega Bosses from across the franchise. While all of this is great at providing players with new and exciting ways to play, the game is currently missing anything from the predecessor to Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls. Thanks to the remake by Bluepoint Games, this title has skyrocketed in popularity, making it the perfect time to release a wave of expansions focusing on Boletaria.
For those that aren’t aware, Demon’s Souls released in 2009, but it never picked up steam like Dark Souls eventually would. As FromSoftware chased the success of its genre defining Souls games, Demon’s Souls seemed to be forgotten by all but the most diehard fans. In 2020, Bluepoint Games changed all of that by remaking Demon’s Souls from the ground up for the PS5. As the first next generation Souls game, it has stunning graphics and clean gameplay, and its story is finally able to shine. Dark Souls: The Board Game understandably doesn’t have any Demon’s Souls content yet, but that could change now.
In general, there are three types of expansions for Dark Souls: The Board Game, those being content expansions, mega bosses, and mechanic expansions. Content expansions generally add new areas, enemies, and bosses in order to help players diversify their games. Examples of this include the Darkroot Basin expansion, which adds enemies from that region as well as two new bosses in the form of Sif and Artorias, or the Explorer’s Expansion, which gives players access to the Pursuer and Old Dragonslayer bosses.
The majority of the expansions available for Dark Souls: The Board Game are mega bosses, though, which add powerful boss fights that are meant to be fought at the end of a grueling campaign. Each of these expansions comes with a new mega boss, a board to fight them on, and all the things needed to bring those bosses to life. Finally, mechanic expansions are things like the Phantoms and Character expansions, and these add new things to the game for players to explore. In the case of Phantoms, players can now summon allies to help them but must deal with deadly invaders. Likewise, the Character expansion adds six new playable characters from Dark Souls to the game.
Were Steamforged Games to release a new content expansion for Dark Souls: the Board Game focused on Demon’s Souls, it should adapt the Tower of Latria area, also known as the Archstone of the Tower Queen. Though it may seem like Boletaria would be the obvious choice, that area already shares a lot in common with the Undead Burg and High Wall of Lothric area already included in the base box.
This small campaign would take players through the Prison of Hope (world 3-1), dealing with Mind Flayers and other hazards. At the end of this first area, the players would take on the Fool’s Idol boss fight. Moving on, Upper Latria would introduce new Giant Man Centipedes and Gargoyle enemies with variants for ranged and melee combat, before challenging players with the Maneaters boss fight. This could work similarly to the Gargoyles in the core box’s Dark Souls campaign. Players that are able to clear all of that could head up the Ivory Tower to face the Old Monk, a boss that could change with each fight since it is technically an invader from another world.
Demon’s Souls is full of amazing bosses, but this makes picking one for a mega boss expansion simultaneously easier and harder. Of all the bosses in the game, it seems as though the Tower Knight would be the best fit for a number of reasons. Not only is his size absolutely immense, but the Tower Knight also has become something of a mascot for the remake. As an enemy found in Boletaria, it would work well to put him at the end of most campaigns, and he has a lot of unique features that could make for an interesting fight.
Alternatively, Flamelurker would also make for a good Mega Boss, and could fit well into the end of an Iron Keep campaign. This is one of the most notorious bosses in Demon’s Souls thanks to how difficult it is compared to most others. The Flamelurker is extremely agile, very powerful, and has a unique arena that could make for a great mega boss tile. Realistically any of the bosses in Demon’s Souls could probably work as mega bosses, but these two seem most fit for the job.
One thing that becomes exceedingly clear when playing through Demon’s Souls is some of its experimental mechanics that ultimately made Dark Souls what it is today. World Tendency is one such thing, and even though the Demon’s Souls remake didn’t to much to modernize World Tendency, it could make for a unique mechanic in Dark Souls: The Board Game. One of the biggest issues players have with the rules as written is the way difficulty and earning souls is handled, and this feature could fix that.
In Demon’s Souls, as a player’s World Tendency shifts towards white, the enemies get weaker and the player gets stronger, but in return they award less souls. Conversely, as a player’s World Tendency shifts towards black, the enemies get stronger and it is easier for them to overpower players, but as a reward they are worth more souls. This could be applied as a sort of difficulty setting for Dark Souls: The Board Game, perhaps letting players choose what World Tendency they’d like to play on. Neutral World Tendency would be how the game is now, while Pure White World Tendency and Pure Black World Tendency could function as easy and hard modes, increasing or decreasing enemy strength and soul rewards accordingly.
Dark Souls: The Board Game is available now.
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