The intended meaning of most of from soft games is perseverance in spite of objective futility and the failure of society.

The world has died, society has failed, the powerful both good and bad have failed. No one, no matter their intentions can change the world for everyone around them let alone themselves by themselves. The good can not make the world better and the bad can not make it worse.

To inact change requires people to sacrifice and push forward. Even if it means their doom, even if it’s pointless. For no good ever comes from half measures, from hiding away, or from denying that which is around them because it is unpleasant.

For only with perseverance and the lasting memory and hope of change being taken up be each successor can true change be made.

And even still, to fight to hold that change still, and deny the next generation their right to enact change is just as futile and harmful as not trying at all.

This not including the additional horrors and commentary from their armored core games or spin offs such as Bloodborne. Even those series still have this under lying messaging.

While you arnt wrong on the aesthetics and what they give off on a surface level. You clearly lack the context of the world and story of the main souls games beyond only what is on the cover. You are very much in the wrong and deeply at that, over what the meaning of the worlds of from soft games.

Haunting IS a better word to describe it then stunning tho.

For as “nuanced” as people like to claim the from soft games are. They are very very blunt with their messaging, even if the stories they tell are terribly convoluted.

Omg I feel seen. Yeah I might not be fully unappreciative of the aesthetic, but shit can be dark and grim in real life as it is and it feels edgy and emo to go all gore gothic all the time. Every videogame trailer that starts with “shit’s horrible around here” is an instant “next”. Also I’ve always had a problem with eternal unliveable dungeons that make no architectural sense. Even though it is fantasy, it makes it far more childish, which matters if they’re trying to take themselves seriously.

It’s okay if grimdark doesn’t appeal to you. I like stories about people doing the right thing in a hostile setting,

I disagree with you completely on this but I really enjoy your point of view here

Is it particularly more your fault that things don’t better in Souls games than in any other game in which you are meant to save the world? I think the only difference is that in the Souls ones and others like them, the world is already horrible and needs repaired in some way rather than on the verge of becoming horrible

Interestingly Elden Ring went for quite a different direction. The world is, unquestionably, still an enormous mess that would be horrendous to live in, but they’ve left in far more of the beauty. I particularly like how every so often you hear hostile NPCs playing music or singing if they haven’t spotted you yet, and how there’s a little puzzle side quest about a painter; people are still making art in this ongoing apocalypse. One important allied NPC even actually openly makes an argument that the world is worth preserving if it looks like you’re going for the “destroy everything” ending

Of course the atmosphere and gameplay are still heavy going, both in the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I get why that wouldn’t be for everyone. It’s like playable Cormac McCarthy stories, except you can punch your way out of most of the misery if you get it right