My next project is Dark Souls

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Hey there! Sorry for posting so rarely here, it's been a few turbulent months in my life, BUT I am finally ready to unveil my next project.

I call it "Project Darkness" in my head — it's a cheesy working title I came up with waaaaay back, when I was still doing 'The World of Sekiro" but it kinda stuck.

And it's about Dark Souls. "The World of Dark Souls", if you will.

I'm sure you knew that already, but I have to say I was thinking about doing a Bloodborne project; it could've been short and sweet, but these types of linguistic projects involve a lot of playing the actual game. I started the Sekiro project after two full playthroughs, and I had to do one more, plus countless hours of just wandering around, testing things and looking at things. I've never owned a PlayStation and I don't think I want to borrow it from someone for a year, so Bloodborne will have to wait. But I promise to jump right in if Sony ever ports it to PC and doesn't require a PSN account to play it.

Dark Souls was the next obvious choice because I already have all the books that I need to base my research on. I have the artbooks for DS1, DS2 and DS3, and I also have a curious little piece called "Archive of the Fire" that I think was never translated from Japanese to any other language. Or maybe it was? The last time I checked it wasn't, and I've had this book for a while so I can't really say for sure. It has all the dialogue scripts, additional materials and a whole bunch of very interesting interviews that plainly answer some questions that have been circulating on the Internet for a long time.

And I've had all these books for YEARS. I never really enjoyed playing Dark Souls, but I always enjoyed the lore. So from time to time, I would pick up one of the books, leaf through it and be like, "Oh, this enemy is actually called "Scylla", that's funny", or "Ah, so Yuria is not the uchigatana or a female character, huh". And after the success of "The World of Sekiro" — thank you again for watching and reading, and listening to me go on about Japanese in Sekiro for 30 videos straight — I thought, well, a lot has been said and done about Dark Souls in the last decade, but maybe I can still chime in with some interesting bits that got lost in translation. You know, I have always been convinced that half of the mysterious flair of Dark Souls — and Elden Ring too — comes from the localization, rather than from the original text.

So, I will retranslate all of it. All of Dark Souls. Initially I thought to do them all separately — Dark Souls 1, then 2 and 3, and do them in isolation; treat Dark Souls 1 as if I don't know about the sequels. But then I scrapped that idea: it's quite irrational and would undoubtedly lead to me looping back around to clarify or add context to previously discussed topics based on what I learned from the sequels.

I will approach all three games as one big project. First, I will translate everything from scratch: all four books that I have and the interviews plus everything else from the games themselves, including descriptions, dialogues etc. And I won't do it with a pen and a notebook like I did the Sekiro project; I have already set up a database in Obsidian where I will keep all my notes and translations and link them to one another to get a comprehensive view. Then, when everything is translated, I will proceed to compose blogposts that will consequently turn into videos. With this approach, I hope to eliminate as much of going back and forth between topics as possible, because it annoyed me a lot in "The World of Sekiro". I was writing as I went along, and there were constantly little bits and pieces that I needed to add to the posts I had already released, and it was driving me nuts. Of course, the same will happen here, undoubtedly, since this project will be colossal, but my goal is not to get rid of going back and forth entirely, but just make it so I don't have to do it every new post.

So... how long will it take? A long time because it's a lot of work :D Of course, Dark Souls is easier in terms of cultural references and it's highly unlikely I'll have to spend 3 days reading about shugendō, but still, the amount of in-game text plus all the interviews and bits from Archives of the Fire is staggering. But I'll do it, I'm interested enough. Much like with Sekiro, it will be for my own analytical entertainment, but I hope you will also find it interesting.

The plan is as follows: translate the majority of the texts by mid (or end of)-2025 and then begin video production. In the meantime, I'll be streaming on Twitch a few times a week because if all I do is translate Dark Souls every single day, I'll lose my mind. I am contemplating streaming Dark Souls specifically, because even though I shudder at the thought, I can't really make this project happen if I don't know all three games like the back of my hand. I will also try to post monthly opinion pieces and other types of videos on the channel about the games I happen to play. I'm thinking about doing more localization analysis for other Japanese games — not as huge comprehensive projects, but just as one-off fun things.

I have set up a Patreon page if you want to follow this project more closely, get some behind the scenes of me wading through the preliminary stage and just generally support me in my shenanigans. There's only one tier now — $2, or your currency's equivalent. All Patrons can expect to have one monthly video with the project update plus some odd videos of me talking about videogames that I play (mostly) unscripted, as well as early access to my videos a day or two prior to the Youtube release and appearance in all video credits. If you're not sure it's worth the commitment, you can join for free! Apparently, Patreon now allows to do that :D I have some plans for the free public content too that, while exclusive for Patreon, will be available to anyone who joins.

The most important thing to note is that the Dark Souls project will be available on Youtube for free when it's ready, just like the Sekiro project was. You'll get to see it all the same, and you don't need to become a patron for that. Well, maybe just for the early access.

That's it, I guess. I am almost done with the DS1 artbook and I plan to supplement it with the part from Archive that concerns the first game; it has some additional arts and notes. Otherwise, I'll be moving slowly but surely towards my goal, and I hope we'll all get to see it come true. Honestly, working with Dark Souls is so much different than working with Sekiro: the texts are way simpler but there's a lot of Japanese coinage and adapted high-fantasy terms, not to mention a boatload of tiny handwritten text in the artbooks that sometimes takes hours to decipher. But don't worry, it will all be conquered, and I hope to eventually put out blogposts and videos of even higher quality than those I did for Sekiro. And yes, I still remember I owe you the dialogues from Sekiro; whenever I need a break from Dark Souls, I'll relax retranslating those.

As usual, stay tuned here and on the Lair's YouTube channel not to miss out on anything.

I am very much back, and I couldn't be happier. Thank you as always for your support, and your time. Take care.