this is more like it, but I’d argue that the contextless and inconsistent texture of the world and the experience of moving through it is “dreamlike” in the way it has this like derealization function to ir. Maybe that’s antithetical to the way dreams normally feel, or more specifically maybe it’s the way dreams feel upon reflection. Either way, I think whatever Dark Souls 2 does it inspires an actual surrealist frame of mind where the world is impossible to take as a smooth, realistic thing that just exists but is rather something being made by something. For the surrealists that would be machinic unconscious, but for games maybe it can be the machinic digital or even the whole machinic apparatus of game production at that scale.
I really like games which draw attention to their material nature as digital things, and I just think Dark Souls 2 is cool because it’s not a meta commentary on games as a medium and 3d world aesthetics, but it does kind of teach some of the same points a more self-reflexive game would while being fun and a little bit wonderful too.
That’s my DS2 game theory anyway…