The Dark Queen Of Mortholme is a reverse Elden Ring where you play the final boss

FromSoftware’s RPGs have done much to explore the cycle of death and resurrection that games have historically taken for granted, but ask comparatively few questions on how the bosses feel about all this. What of the growing psychological weariness that comes from having to swat the same quixotic gnat over and over? What of the despair that grows from realising that, in the eternal battle between godly power and free resurrections 4 life, resurrections will always win out on a long enough timeline. Broken meta. Plz fix. My crumbling empire and poetically exposed eterna-hubris cannot take any more.

What I’m saying is, when people talk about Dark Souls being about “overcoming adversity”, they are lying to themselves. Dark Souls is about being a tiny little cheater running face first into a wall until your head is so used to the shape of the bricks that they simply have no effect on your fat, dumb skull. Dark Souls is about using an unfair advantage to torture gods who are much better than you at everything.

Enter The Dark Queen Of Mortholme, a one (boss) room play that casts you in the role of a 2D Soulslike’s final challenge. It’s actually been kicking around on Itch for a while now, but it’s getting a Steamly re-release with “full controller support, over a dozen languages,” and achievements. Its existence is also news to me. The best kind of news, for the best kind of me (me).

“Experience a macabre, short-form, second-person indie, you play as The Dark Queen of Mortholme, the final barrier between the Hero and the end credits,” reads Steam. “In this fixed-screen pixel art game, use the Queen’s attacks against this hero, slay them, and quell this nuisance once and for all. But, wait. How is this possible? The Hero keeps coming back”.

The game is “designed to be eaten in a single, emotional sitting”. Wait, no, sorry. I’m reading from the back of my Tesco Cherry Bakewell Cheesecake box (£1.85, 450g). The game is “designed to be beaten in a single emotional sitting”. Lovely. It’s also got multiple endings and routes. There’s something in there about seeing “the hero’s point of view” but this sounds like defeatism to me. It’s out next month, August the 15th. Again, you can play on Itch right now.