Skip to main content

‘Dark Souls’ and ‘Cuphead’ mash-up is a masochist’s dream game

64 Bits - Cupsouls (Dark Souls animated like Cuphead)
Praise the sun and curse your controller. The Dark Souls series — and its first game in particular — are considered to be among the hardest games of the last decade, with brutal boss fights, an unforgiving checkpoint system, and a complex animation-driven combat system. But StudioMDHR’s run-and-gun shooter Cuphead gives Dark Souls a run for its money, and the immensely talented team at 64 Bits imagined what the two games would look like combined together.

Specifically, 64 Bits showed what the Dark Souls games would look like if they were animated in the classic style of Cuphead, and the result has us hoping the game becomes a reality in the future. We see the player attempting to take down Ornstein and Smough using lightning bolt attacks from his fingertips, and Sif, the Great Grey Wolf, transforms from an adorable woodland creature into a vicious beast carrying a sword in its mouth.

Perhaps our favorite boss fight included in the video is High Lord Wolnir from Dark Souls III. The massive creature’s wristbands can be seen on each arm, and it vomits toxic gas.

64 Bits even created the game’s bonfires and environments using a top-down perspective similar to Cuphead‘s overworld, as well as chase sequences which utilize an isometric view. Naturally, the two adventures are eventually squashed, resulting in the classic “you died’ message displaying on the screen. Anyone who has ever played the Dark Souls series or Bloodborne is quite familiar with these two words, and likely cursed at their television when they saw them appear.

This actually isn’t the first time we’ve seen Dark Souls make the jump to 2D. To promote 2016’s Dark Souls III, Bandai Namco released a mobile endless-runner game called Slashy Souls. Unlike the game on which it is based, it received horrendous reviews. Still, we’d love to see a proper side-scrolling game in the series at some point. The closest thing we have right now is Ska Studios’ Salt and Sanctuary, which uses a similar combined currency and experience system, as well as open-ended environments and brutal bosses.

Cuphead is available now for Xbox One and PC. Dark Souls III is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Editors' Recommendations

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
The Devil in Me might be the scariest Dark Pictures game yet
The Devil in Me cover

While I love Supermassive Games’ standalone horror projects such as 2015’s Until Dawn and this year’s The Quarry, I am less enthused by the studio’s The Dark Pictures Anthology series. Man of Medan and Little Hope were boring as they lacked interesting characters and offered unsatisfying lore behind their antagonists; however, the third installment, House of Ashes, had a likable cast and some genuinely fascinating lore. With Supermassive finally finding its footing with The Dark Pictures Anthology, I was looking forward to what the next anthology entry and season one finale, The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me, offered.

I got a hands-off preview for The Devil in Me, presented by Bandai Namco and Supermassive’s game director, Tom Heaton, as the latter explained the inspirations for this upcoming title and how it looked to improve on the formula. Each of the characters in the main cast has a more distinct role to play within the overall dynamic of the group, making them memorable. Also, its murder house setting and new interactive gameplay mechanics, including puzzles and traversal, might make it the most engaging Dark Pictures game to date.

Read more
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course makes the whole game better
Cuphead fights a snow wizard in Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course.

I didn’t quite love Cuphead as much as I wanted to when it launched in 2017 -- you could say it wasn’t my cup of tea, if you must. I loved its old-timey cartoon art style, but its crushing difficulty made it hard to love. I just wanted to admire all the gorgeous hand-drawn animations, but the skill barrier made me bounce off the game before I got to the end.

Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course - Release Date Trailer - Nintendo Switch

Read more
The best games like Elden Ring
Jin plays his flute as Iki Island looms in the background.

Even though it was possibly the most hyped-up game prior to launch, not many could've predicted just how popular Elden Ring would end up being. It has single-handedly outsold the entirety of the Dark Souls series, on its own, within just a few months of release. Even more impressively, it outsold the latest Call of Duty game, which has held the best-selling spot for the past decade or so every year. The once niche genre that FromSoftware really started to refine with 2009's Demons' Souls has finally become mainstream, and millions of players have gotten their first taste of this style of game and are thirsty for more.

While Elden Ring shares a lot of elements from other games, even past FromSoftware games don't give the exact experience you get from Elden Ring. Depending on what aspects of the game drew you in the most, you may have to make some concessions on other parts. But between all the games we've selected, you're sure to find something that will give you more of that feeling you crave. Elden Ring is a unique and, for the time being, one-of-a-kind experience, but once you've finished exploring and fighting everything in The Lands Between, you'll likely be looking for the next game that can give you that same feeling. Here are the best games like Elden Ring to try out after you've become the Elden Lord.

Read more