While visiting the Dark Souls official website, I could not help noticing the pop-up quote by IGN claiming that “Dark Souls Will Eat Skyrim’s Face.” Out of pure amusement, I chuckled slightly. Without a smidge of research, it is pretty obvious at this point that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a far more successful game as far as sales and economics is concerned. This sparked my interest though; I wanted to know just HOW much of a difference there was.
According to VGChartz total units sold the first week in the US, Europe, and Japan:
PS3:
- Dark Souls – 488,535
- Skyrim – 775,062
- Difference – 286,527
Xbox 360:
- Dark Souls – 105,667
- Skyrim – 1,528,707
- Difference – 1,423,040
Say what you will for unit sales numbers, the vastness of the difference is still apparent in the data. While the PS3 numbers are far closer than the Xbox 360 numbers, a few hundred-thousand is still a big gap. The fact that there are nearly a million in difference in Xbox 360 is unheard of. With this said, the units sold category goes to Skyrim–hands down.
My interest was still peaked though; I traveled to IGN’s webpage to see how much higher Dark Souls was rated than Skyrim. This is when things got interesting. IGN rated Dark Souls 9.0 and IGN rated Skyrim 9.5. WHAT!? But didn’t you say… that… huh?
This lead to my next dilemma; I need a hard definition of what “Eating One’s Face” means. If selling over a million less units through PS3 and Xbox 360 is eating one’s face, then Dark Souls absolutely feasted on Skyrim’s visage. That wouldn’t have been my definition, though.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Dark Souls. After completing it, and after “completing” Skyrim, I fall into that small percent that, overall, actually enjoyed Dark Souls more. Granted, it was close, as both games are revolutionary. I’ve always been a ‘challenge guy,’ as huge and endless as Skyrim is, it plateaus in difficulty. There was only so much I could run around at max level exploring caves and doing miscellaneous quests before wanting to move on. Dark Souls was constantly challenging, and if you are willing to attempt a 2nd and even 3rd playthrough, it only gets harder. Plus, Dark Souls’ multiplayer was an additional enjoyable aspect to the game–invading, being invaded, and helping others with boss fights.
With all my love for Dark Souls, I still wouldn’t make the argument that Dark Souls ate Skyrim’s face; if I was to make that statement, though, I wouldn’t rate the devourer lower than the food. I’m the only one in the office that preferred Dark Souls over Skyrim, hence our higher Skyrim score. Nothing in Dark Souls could ever be as entertaining as the Skyrim horses. I still highly recommend you play both and eat face whichever way you prefer.
