Dark Souls: The Board Game – The Sunless City is a new take on the tabletop adaptation, aiming to make the rules easier to grasp, while also featuring the most iconic location from the original video game: Anor Londo. As a long-time fan of dying a lot in video games, Dark Souls is an important series to me, and having also played the standard version of The Board Game, I’m happy to report that it’s definitely a little more player-friendly, while not removing any of the lethality.
Let’s go over what you get in the box though, because that’s pretty important for a board game. You get fifteen enemy minis with three of those being bosses. Calling the bosses “miniature” feels a little off to be honest, given that you can fight against a Titanite Demon, and then the classic duo of Ornstein and Smough, and they’re all massive. You also get three player classes – Herald, Warrior, and Pyromancer – and then a bunch of new cards covering your equipment and spells.
What’s really cool, is that even though the rules do take a new approach, it’s all backwards compatible. That means that you can bring in pieces from other sets you have, and that’ll unlock new classes, more boss fights, and enemies in general. We’re a big fan of this approach, because it means that the money anybody has spent on the first generation of the game isn’t wasted.
You can play this solo and still have a lot of fun, but can also bring up to two of your friends in to help tackle the might of Anor Londo. You’ll have to overcoming different encounters, which are decided by drawing Encounter Cards to decide on what you’ll be fighting in any given room, along with the loot that you’ll be getting as well. The Titanite Demon then stands as a mini-boss of sorts, with the big duo serving as the climactic final fight.
It can feel odd that, without a dedicated player for the bad guys, you have to both control them and try to overcome them, though it’s all handled by a deck of cards that serves as their attack pattern. You’ll need to learn the order of the cards, which you shuffle each time you play the game to keep it fresh, and then think ahead about what attacks are coming, and where you’ll need to be. You can also, if you want, carry your progress on into other expansions to keep games going longer, even serving as a way to allow for a month-long campaign. You don’t have to though, and that’s one of the things that makes this special.
