Reading video game reviews influences whether or not we should buy a game or opens up new opinions on those we’re already familiar with. Video game academic writing, however, can alter our perspective on specific games, genres or gaming history. This was my experience reading the masterfully academic (and accessible) work The Scholar’s Codex curated by Prof. Stefano Gualeni and Dr. Daniel Vella from the University of Malta, Dom Ford (Bergen University) and Nele van de Mosselaer (Tilburg University).
The book collects together a series of highly illuminating essays on multiple facets of FromSoftware games. I have been playing FromSoftware games for many years, like most gamers, and, arguably, I have not been their biggest champion, yet this book has offered a fresh perspective on the games that I can’t unsee. As Prof. Gualeni said to me in an interview, ‘the essays in the volume tackle some big notions: the philosophy of fiction, gender theory, historicity, the sublime, Romanticism, and so on. But they talk about these big ideas in ways that, hopefully, are accessible and engaging.’
FromSoftware and Romanticism, Dark Souls II and Walter Benjamin’s theory of history? As an art historian these are tantalising subjects that are significantly eye-opening and, quite literally, game-changing.
As a gamer, one of the reasons I could never fully immerse myself in the sub-genre of Soulsborne games are their iconic and integral difficulty levels. In a fascinating article on failure in FromSoftware games, Magdalena Kozyra writes elegantly on the ‘trial and error’ nature of failure, that could, paradoxically, lead to a ‘joyous freedom’ in exploring a world that is intricately linked to FromSoftware’s narratives of fallen, hopeless realms. Our failures in these games reflect the broader failure of the game-world and is thus an integral part of the developers’ method of environmental storytelling.
FromSoftware’s environmental storytelling also receives some worthwhile attention in the publication. It notes that FromSoftware games are ‘world-building models rather than storytelling mechanisms.’ As an art historian this makes me think of the notion of appropriateness, whereby a work of art’s significance is judged by the appropriateness of its content to its technique. FromSoftware takes this to an extreme by crafting a world that is perfectly, frustratingly appropriate to its gameplay mechanics.
Again, this is a perspective I never considered in my previous experience with these games. Previously my experience with the games were, why should I put in all these efforts, die so repeatedly (I never did ‘git gud’), if, when I do actually progress through the game, I am unrewarded with any narrative pay-off? Now, however, I have a deeper appreciation of the Miyazaki philosophy.
This analysis also makes me appreciate FromSoftware games intentionality within the gaming world. FromSoftware is to video games what Abstract Expressionism was to the art world in the mid-20th century. It is dense, philosophical and certainly not intended for a quick and easy hit. They is also, for those who push through their initial barriers, a highly rewarding, quasi-spiritual experience. The analogy, however, can only be taken so far: Abstract Expressionism remained a proudly elitist, exclusivist art form, FromSoftware games, however, for all their avant-gardism, became commercial sensations, especially with Elden Ring.
I mentioned Abstract Expressionism and many people’s minds will instantly fall on the name of Jackson Pollock. With FromSoftware, the most recognisable names is of course the name of its mastermind and president, Hidetaka Miyazaki. The publication sheds some interesting light behind Miyazaki’s rationale, such as where he conceived the notion of summoning an independent player for support against a challenging boss: he was driving up a hill during a heavy snowstorm when his car started sliding down, but luckily he was helped by a driver from a car behind him, ‘I would probably never meet the people who had helped me … You could probably call it a connection of mutual assistance between transient people. Oddly, that incident will probably linger in my heart for a long time. Simply because it’s fleeting.’
These kinds of anecdotes provide both academic insight as well as entertaining behind-the-scenes looks, and that balance is The Scholar’s Codex’s strong point. I would also be a poor art historian if I failed to comment on the publication’s art work. The book is illustrated throughout with dark, brooding images that truly reflect FromSoftware’s aesthetics. The illustrations remind of Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione and are a joy to look at on their own.
As Prof. Gualeni states, ‘video games are among the most influential cultural forms of our time.’ And whilst the academic field of digital studies has been established since 2001, it is necessary and significant for us gamers, so immersed in the medium’s discussions and fictions, to take some time to appreciate these games as the significant cultural artefacts (and artworks) of our times. The Scholar’s Codex achieves this without being too dense, certainly without being preachy, and always by being accessible and enlightening.
