I think one of the interesting things about Demon’s Souls, and Dark Souls to a greater extent, was that each took the dungeon crawler model and extroverted it so that you might be spending just as much time above ground as below ground. Dungeon crawlers have always had a visual mundanity, informed as they were by medieval networks (see the two screenshots above), and even once From Software made the leap to the PlayStation 3, a harsh austerity remained, present in nearly all of Demon’s Souls’ locations, including its tutorial area. If you’ve played King’s Field IV, the last in the series and also developed by From Software, this lineage might be especially noticeable.

I’ve written before that Demon’s Souls’ dungeon crawler lineage is not just apparent in its designs but also in its appearance. “Mundane” is just the best word I’m able to think of right now for an architecture that is not as bizarre as the most bizarre brutalism and not as barebones as the oldest European fortresses. I want to be careful with word usage, though, to avoid propagating an aesthetics of boredom (the crux of critics championing, say, Warhol). What I want to explore is the relationship between invocations of awe and curiosity by massive virtual structures that are sparingly/entirely unornamented, have broad contouring geometric distinction, and (maybe) a material make-up that appears both practical and obsessive (ergo, my photos of brick-based exteriors). Harvard-Kent Elementary School, Charlestown, MA First, here are a few photos I’ve taken of relevant sites.ĪMC Theater, Cambridge, MA (Closed since 2012)

Although this is something I’ve been thinking of for a while, it’s concretized this year – by playing Dark Souls 3, thinking about related videogames, and visiting buildings to walk around and photograph ( one of which has been described by a site as “mid-century mundane”) – as a subject I’d like to explore further in essay form.

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