Dark Souls: The Board Game – can the tabletop version rekindle the flame?
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| Image by Polygon |
[10 min read]
- Intro - The First Flame
- The Age of Fire - Video Games
- The Age of Dark - Return to Tabletop
- Final Thoughts - The Cycle Continues
Intro - The First Flame
I discovered tabletop and video games almost at the same time, back in the late ’80s. Dungeons & Dragons and the Commodore 64 — those were heady days that sparked a lifelong fascination with how people play, and how design shapes that experience.
Video games owe an enormous debt to tabletop’s early innovations. From centuries-old miniature wargames came the foundation for turn-based tactics like XCOM. From Risk and its 1950s cousins, we inherited the DNA of grand strategy games such as Civilisation. And from Dungeons & Dragons — itself born from wargaming in the 1970s — came the blueprint for computer roleplaying games: stats, hit points, experience, progression. Even a predominantly action-focused title like Dark Souls draws deeply from those mechanics.
It was while playing Dark Souls: The Board Game that I began to reflect on how this relationship has evolved. Once, video games borrowed from tabletop; now, tabletop games increasingly draw from the vast worlds and systems of video games. But what does this cycle mean for players — and for the industry? What does each medium offer that the other cannot? And can a board game truly rekindle the spirit of its digital source?
If your own “first flame” was lit by either tabletop or video games, read on — because understanding how these worlds continue to shape each other might also hint at where both are heading next.
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| The Witch of Izalith tried to recreate the First Flame. But failed. Image by FromSoftware |
The Age of Fire - Video Games
My affection for Dark Souls is no secret. And with close to 40 million copies sold across the franchise, it seems I’m not alone in treasuring its unforgiving combat and atmospheric storytelling. Elden Ring, its spiritual successor, has reportedly passed 30 million units, a reminder that even the most demanding, ‘core’ video games can command a vast audience.
| Dark Souls franchise - 40 million video game sales across three games over 15 years Image by Bandai Namco |
Contrast that with the Dark Souls board game adaptation from 2016. It was a milestone at the time: more than 30,000 backers and over $5 million USD raised on Kickstarter, one of the earliest large-scale video-game-to-tabletop conversions. Even allowing for retail sales since then, the board game sits on a radically smaller plateau than its digital inspiration.
A more generous comparison between the two industries might be the likes of Monopoly, often cited at more than 250 million units sold, which does begin to rival evergreen video game giants such as Grand Theft Auto V or Minecraft. But annual revenue tells the starker story. Video games were estimated at around $190 billion in 2024 (Newzoo), while tabletop games sat near $20 billion (imarc). From the 1990s through today, this has been video games' Age of Fire, burning far hotter and brighter than their tabletop ancestors.
But why has the digital flame roared so fiercely?
I attribute it to a blend of factors:
- the promise of vast, richly rendered worlds that ask little of the imagination’s bandwidth
- minimal setup, faster time-to-fun, shorter play sessions, especially on mobile phones
- the ability to play solo without scheduling friction
- online matchmaking that makes multiplayer almost effortless
- digital storefronts that increase access and lower distribution cost
- the visual medium lends well to a huge streaming and watching culture that drives awareness
- and an almost endless stream of add-on content to keep players engaged.
Video games offer near frictionless access to deep mechanics and amazing spectacle, and scale gracefully in a way tabletop rarely can. But just as the Age of Fire inevitably wanes in Dark Souls, giving way to a quieter, more human Age of Dark, the glare of video games creates space for something more grounded to re-emerge. This is where tabletop steps in.
The Age of Dark - Return to Tabletop
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| The Second Edition comes with a number of quality of life improvements over the original Image by Steamforged Games |
Setup: The First Challenge
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Relatively fast to set up compared to other big-box games, though setting up the custom treasure deck is a pain, especially when I added in expansion content.
Presentation is basic overall, though the boss miniatures are excellent and evoke the video game’s sense of scale. The text on the cards is also small and dense, making it difficult to read at times.
The rulebook is not well laid out and feels intimidating at first — the game seems more complex than it is once you start playing.
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Dark Souls knowledge actually helps with both rules comprehension and the rare moments where you must interpret unclear wording which happened mostly during boss fights for me.
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| Not the longest setup from my collection, but do prep your game before your guests come Image by Steamforged Games |
The Combat Loop: Risk, Reward, and Repetition
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The board game captures the video game’s quick, brutal combat scenarios well, and the core resolution mechanic using custom dice is fun and not mentally taxing.
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Enemies act first, forcing you to plan ahead and manage positioning — tactical play like kiting, strafing, baiting all feel true to the source.
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Encounters are fast to resolve, especially once you know the system; boss fights, however, can take almost an hour to set up and complete.
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Memorising boss attack patterns feels satisfying and directly mirrors the learning loop of the video game.
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Resource management (stamina, health, powers) and bonfire resets perfectly capture the risk vs reward structure of Dark Souls: each return to the bonfire costs you one of a limited pool of attempts.
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Dying or resetting means replaying encounters, which sounds repetitive but feels faithful — just as in the video game, you refine your run with each attempt.
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| With two dodge rolls from the thief, that skeleton has no chance. Image courtesy of Dicebreaker |
Progression and Build Crafting: The Joy of the Drop
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The game nails the build fantasy — dodging vs tanking hits, levelling dex vs strength, etc.
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Itemisation is critical and feels authentic, though loot is random — a lucky early drop (like Havel’s Armour) can tip balance and make later runs easier if you have the stats to wield it.
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The progression arc feels good — starting punishingly hard, then easing as your characters gear up. There is a tipping point at which, based on the items you find, you know whether the run is likely to be successful or not - just like the original.
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Second Edition “patches out” some of the rough mechanics from the first game, mirroring how FromSoftware refines its games with updates to balance and accessibility.
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| Finding this guy's gear makes the game almost trivial |
The Cycle: Replayability via Expansions
Like the video game’s bonfire loop, this board game encourages a cycle of mastery and return — set up, fail, learn, retry, and eventually triumph.
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But - the game could grow monotonous if you only own one box — replay value relies on learning patterns and optimising runs.
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However, expansions (bosses, areas, character packs) add variety — functioning much like DLC. We haven't seen any expansions for the newer 2nd Edition, but the older expansions will work with the new core box with minimal conversion. Each brings a new boss or new mechanic.
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| Summon Solaire for a boss fight? Praise the sun! Image by Steamforged Games |
The Human Element: Pacing and Flow
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Short, self-contained encounters make it ideal for solo or duo play — you can stop and resume easily. But if you're juggling multiple characters to make survival a little more assured, it does add some real mental load.
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When everyone knows the system, encounters feel brisk, but strung together, a campaign still demands multiple sessions.
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Once familiar, you can enter a “zen” state, much like in the video game — rhythmic, deliberate, satisfying.
Overall: Faithful but Fatiguing
The Dark Souls board game succeeds in echoing the rhythms that made its digital ancestor so compelling. Its loop of cautious advancement, calculated risk, and hard-won improvement really comes through. The way enemies telegraph their attacks and bosses follow recognisable patterns gives the whole experience an authentic feeling.
Yet the experience carries a certain weight. The rules are presented in a way that demands patience, often more than feels necessary, and the mental load rises sharply when playing solo. Setting up the characters and treasure decks at the start is fiddly. Variety also depends heavily on expansions, which may not appeal to everyone planning to keep things lean.
Taken together, it’s a faithful but demanding interpretation: a game that rewards those who relish the Dark Souls cadence and its deliberate pace, while proving a tougher sell for players seeking something lighter, faster, or more immediate.
Final Thoughts - The Cycle Continues
Video games and tabletop games have been trading ideas for decades, and Dark Souls: the board game shows how far that exchange has travelled. Yet the comparison also highlights where tabletop still contends with friction: setup, cognitive load, rules structure, and the sheer effort required to gather people around a table. These are real constraints versus their video game comparisons, but more modern tabletop games are mitigating these with faster entry into the experience, more welcoming rules, and even lightweight “tutorial” encounters that ease players into the deeper rhythms of a campaign.
Yet tabletop brings its own quiet treasures that digital worlds simply can’t conjure. There is the tactile pleasure of real pieces arranged under lamplight, the tenderness of being away from screens for a change, the warmth of sharing a table in person rather than a server. There is ownership that isn’t leased through a licence or tied to a login. And in the case of Dark Souls, there is a form of multiplayer that feels almost nostalgic: not reactive reflexes in a timing window, but a gathering of friends weighing options, arguing moves, plotting survival. Many players who adored the original games are now older and busier. A tabletop version lets them return to a beloved universe without needing the reflexes of their twenty-year-old selves.
So who are these video game to tabletop adaptations for anyway? They’re for fans who want to savour the world in a new register, who want to feel the game rather than perform it, who want to share it with people across a real table. They are not replacements for the digital experience. They are companion pieces with different instincts to extend the love of the world created by their inspirations.
The cycle between the mediums isn’t ending; it’s evolving. If the Age of Fire belongs to video games, the Age of Dark need not be a decline. It can simply be a return to something slower, more grounded, and unmistakably human — a reminder of the warmth of fading embers enjoyed between friends.
Dashmeister
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| Board games - bringing people together since... forever. Image courtesy of Adventurer's Table |
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