GIT GUD: What Soulslike RPGs Teach us about Greatness and Life Itself

A month or two ago, the Surge was released, to the joy and ire of fans and foes. It was another attempt by a western-developer to create a game in the vein of From Software’s Souls series–that is, an ultra hard, ultra-insane, action-RPG. While shorter than Dark Souls or my series favorite, Bloodborne, my experience with the Surge was incredibly wrought with difficulty. The staff of Samurai Gamers can testify to the fact that I, at one point, become so mad with frustration that they could hear my screams from outside our office.

And with another insane leap, I went into the game again, brushing off my frustration. Eventually, I finished the Surge in about a week. I overcame the final boss–an eldritch nanobeast called Rogue Process–and was rewarded with a rather unsatisfying ending. But that doesn’t matter–what matters is that I, admittedly a lazy fool who always seeks to take the easier path, pushed myself to finish such a daunting task. And pulled through. 

I hope that gives me enough credits to tell you about ‘Git Gud’ and the unmoving monolith of difficulty found in games like the Surge, and also what these games teach you about life and pursuing greatness in the real world.

You’re No Dragonborn. Complaining will not help you progress through the game.

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.  You post a rant about Dark Souls here or Bloodborne there, writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about how it’s so hard and unfair. Some jerk, insensitive to your plight–certainly a troll, comments on your post, saying those damnable two words: ‘GIT GUD.’

You have every right to rail against him, to downvote his comment, to do this and do that. But I’m sure you’ll learn like I have that catharsis aside, complaining about the game and the troll does nothing to help you progress through the game. The game will still be insane like it was before, and it does not let up, no matter what. After all, this is a Soulslike game. It will kick the crap out of you because it doesn’t give a damn about you.

Now you’re faced with a conundrum. What will allow you to progress through the game?

Surprisingly enough, the simplest answer was given by our hypothetical troll himself:

GIT GUD.

Finding Victory through Introspection

“The game is so unfair,” 

“Git Gud.”

“Why won’t this game make it easy for me?” 

“Git gud.” 

“How could it hit me like that?” 

“Git gud.” 

This is the thought process going through my brain as I played the Surge. At one point I already groaned in utter frustration at what an insensitive ass that voice in my head was. But it was then and only then that I realized the glory in ‘Git Gud’: I was reminding myself to look at how I play, and to adjust it accordingly. 

Git Gud meant that I had to change something in me–how I reacted, how I played, what moves I made. It meant that I had to learn the hard way through a thousand failures and a thousand corrections. Nothing in the world was going to budge an inch unless you were able to up your own skill, adapt to the hardship and challenge at hand, and plow through through in spite of countless failures. 

Take the firebug. That fight was utterly agonizing, and it came to a point that I couldn’t land hits. I was convinced the game was bugged, but then I took an introspective look and saw that I had been hitting it in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Eventually I took the boss down after moment after moment of trial and error, improving and improving my technique.

Git Gud, is a challenge to overcome myself first in order to destroy the challenges that oppress me. It was a path through self-introspection and self-overcoming, of correcting what needs to be corrected, and plowing through once you’ve triumphed over yourself. Depending if you’ve succeeded, you will experience the joy that Friedrich Nietzsche himself called happiness:

“Happiness is the feeling that power increases – that resistance is being overcome.”
– Nietzsche, the Anti Christ

Git Gud and a Life of Greatness

They say that life often imitates art, or art imitates life. Soulslike games, with the amount of failure states promised, truly paint a picture of life: you will fail. You will become frustrated. You will be defeated, be battered, be bruised. There will be much sorrows in your life, and most of the time, life won’t take it easy on you. 

It’s easy, then, to just give up in exasperation, or succumb to slave morality and join the masses in their mediocrity and cries to make things easier for themselves. However, if one truly wants to live—and live a fulfilling life–one must git gud–that is, one must seek to adapt to the circumstances by changing their behavior and ethic.

Truly great lives are a matter of the git gud principle applied in life: of perseverance, adaptation and resilience.

Yes, it is most definitely not an easy road, but hey, so is Dark Souls. 

Related Articles

While it’s true that you have to overcome your struggles on your own, you don’t need to defeat your monsters without any knowledge. Come check out our Soulslike wikis to help you git gud! 

• Dark Souls III Walkthrough and Strategy Wiki 
• Nioh Walkthrough and Strategy Wiki 
• The Surge Walkthrough and Strategy Wiki 

Feature image taken from this video.