The Dark Souls of "X" (It's Just Like Dark Souls)

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Game journalists when they die once in a videogame: It's just like Dark Souls

James Willems Following @JamesWillems This headline... Anthem' Channels 'Warframe' More Than Destiny.' With 'Division' Influences In lts Diablo'Loot Anthem is a blend of every loot-based game that's come before it. But can it stand on its own? F Forbes 3 hours ago 10:03 AM - 27 Jan 2019

Every game isn't DARK SOULS you guys Just suck at games

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About

“It's Just Like Dark Souls” is an expression often used to describe various challenging video games by comparing them to the difficult boss battles found in the Dark Souls franchise. Online, the comparison has been widely mocked as reductive by video game enthusiasts.

Origin

In January 2014, the @xmeetsdarksouls^[3] Twitter feed was launched, which mocks video game news articles which publish similar comparison articles, describing the feed as "The Dark Souls of reductive comparisons.

Spread

On May 20th, 2017, YouTuber PewDiePie uploaded a video mocking news articles referring to the video game The Surge as "just like Dark Souls" (shown below). Within five months, the video gathered upwards of 2.7 million views and 9,200 comments.

On June 29th, 2017, the video game news site GamesRadar^[2] published a review of the newly released game Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which criticized the game's controls, saying "the controls just mean that Crash Bandicoot has become Dark Souls."

On July 4th, 2017, the video game news site Vg247^[1] published an article criticizing the comparisons between Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Dark Souls. On July 14th, YouTuber Fungo uploaded a video titled "Has Crash Bandicoot Become Dark Souls?" (shown below, left). On July 17th, PewDiePie uploaded a video featuring Crash Bandicoot N. Sane, in which he sarcastically repeated the "just like Dark Souls" joke (shown below, right). Over the next three months, the video received more than 4.3 million views and 25,200 comments.

On September 6th, Twitter user @folyqa tweeted photoshopped cover art for the game Cuphead edited with the title "Cup Souls" (shown below). Within one month, the tweet received more than 1,800 likes and 900 retweets.

CUP SOULS EVERYONE CONTENT RATED BY ESR B

On September 30th, YouTuber WeeGee Plays uploaded a Cuphead gameplay video titled "Cuphead: The Dark Souls of Cup Games" (shown below, left). On October 2nd, PewDiePie uploaded a video titled "[Cuphead] this game is a little hard," which introduced the game by mocking the "just like Dark Souls" meme (shown below, right).