Twitch beats Dark Souls, thanks to democracy

The gaming prowess of Twitch, at least as an entity composed of hundreds of people typing frantically into a chat window, has been proven today with the defeat of gaming’s notoriously tough touchstone, Dark Souls. It took a dedicated cluster of chatters, each feeding granular commands into a remotely controlled and broadcast version of Dark Souls, a total of 43 days to destroy the final boss.

They died 904 times.

Of course, as with many things in Dark Souls, there’s some bad news too. The game won at first, proving too complex - even in its beginning area - for the chaotic directions of the chat. To progress, a system of democracy had to be implemented, pausing the game briefly as commands were voted on and lined up. Though the inputs were still broken down to a fine level, with separate command phrases for walking, rolling, recovery and fighting, Twitch could only beat Dark Souls by turning it into a nearly turn-based affair. Here’s how Twitch played when the pauses are removed and the commands are all stitched back together:

Still, if Captain Kirk taught us anything, it’s that cheating the simulation is a perfectly legitimate way to overcome your nemesis, provided you stay cocky about it. Let’s take it as a display of confidence, then, that Twitch is moving right on to Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin.

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