Überraschende Wende bei TSG-Star

Causality Chain is a series at PC Gamer exploring the unlikely links between history, culture, and videogames. And ocassionally hedgehogs.

The arc of history curves in mysterious ways. Beloved actor Keanu Reeves—Ted, Neo, John Wick himself—may not be Buddhist, but he does, in fact, owe the existence of one of his blockbuster roles to the teachings of one of Buddhism's most important figures.

How, you ask? And what exactly does this have to do with videogames? Excellent questions that can only be answered by a causality chain, tracing the butterfly effect of a man walking westward 1,400 years ago to the modern day movie star known for his iconic delivery of the word "Whoa."

Join us, as we tip over the dominoes to link past to present...

The origins of Chinese Buddhism 🔗 Keanu Reeves big dogging Sonic the Hedgehog

620s AD: Around the year 627, Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang begins a 17 year journey from China to India in search of Buddhist texts...

He returns in the year 645 with hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts, which he will work to translate until his death. One of Xuanzang's disciples writes and publishes a book titled Records of the Western Regions, a dictated account of his pilgrimage.¹

1590s: Xuanzang's account inspires 1,000 years of folktales, both written and in the oral tradition. In the late 16th century, a fictional account of the journey of Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang and the monkey king Sun Wukong is published under the name Journey to the West.²

1984: Manga artist Akira Toriyama decides to follow up his hit comic Dr. Slump, which was set in a vague satirical version of America, with a new series that has "Chinese scenery" instead.³

Toriyama uses Journey to the West as the template, saying in a 1995 interview "I thought it would be easy if that story served as the basis, since all I would have to do would be to arrange things." His protagonist Son Goku is modeled after the Monkey King.

1991: After Dragon Ball becomes increasingly popular as a battle manga, Toriyama gives Goku a power-up called Super Saiyan. He draws Super Saiyan Goku with a golden aura and blonde hair instead of black so that his assistant can spend less time inking Goku's hair each issue.⁴

1992: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 debuts in November the following year. When he powers up by collecting the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic glows gold and transforms into Super Sonic.

Coincidence?? No.⁵

2001: To give Sonic a more powerful rival, Sonic Team creates Shadow the Hedgehog, the "ultimate lifeform." He canonically approves of stealing candy from babies⁶, and is also maybe Vegeta.⁷

2024: After being cast as the voice of Shadow, Keanu Reeves looks an interviewer dead in the eyes and declares that he, either as a human man or the voice of a CGI hedgehog, can beat up Sonic the Hedgehog.⁸

Sources and further reading

1. Xuanzang, Wikipedia
2. How to understand Journey to the West, Stone Bridge Press
3. Akira Toriyama Super Interview, Kanzenshuu
4. The Truth About the “Dragon Ball” Manga, Kanzenshuu
5. Sonic the Hedgehog & Dragon Ball – Influences and Inspiration, Zed's Writings
6. Shadow the Hedgehog - This is like taking candy from a baby, YouTube
7. Iizuka says Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't inspired by Vegeta, but fans have receipts that say otherwise, PC Gamer
8. Keanu Reeves Talks Voicing Shadow, YouTube

Read more on PC Gamer

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• Enslaved was a one-of-a-kind post-apocalyptic epic
• Keanu Reeves went on an intense 'internal journey' to inhabit the role of evil Sonic the Hedgehog With a Gun

Some fans credit 2009 action role-playing game Demon's Souls with establishing many conventions now considered synonymous with its developer FromSoftware, like crumbling Gothic kingdoms, dark fantasy monsters, and challenging gameplay to make you cry like you've ingested a whole lemon. But before it became some discerning masochists' medieval horror of choice, Demon's Souls was an experiment by defunct Sony developer Japan Studio and FromSoftware.

Video game cut content kingpin Lance McDonald gives rare insight into these infant days of Demon's Souls with a previously lost prototype presentation Japan Studio put together in 2007, to show off at a conference called Gameshare 4. Company notes indicate the publisher introduced developer FromSoftware as the brain behind "real-time 3D classic" King's Field – the 1994 graveyard quest that's the true grandfather of Dark Souls – which emphasizes how much time has passed. This is decades before Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls itself.

The presentation also shows off the 2007-era "photorealistic quality" of Demon's Souls lorn wastelands and mad, mutated enemies, many of which didn't make it to the final version of the game – like a serpent knight with a squiggly neck and tall boots.

A video demo of Demon's Souls prototype' also shows an optional first-person perspective – like King's Field – that would have put your face right in the middle of bosses' formidable, scaly bellies.

Otherwise, Japan Studio distinguishes Demon's Souls from other RPGs by calling online games too time consuming – and the company literally includes a screengrab from that South Park World of Warcraft episode to demonstrate a "stereotype image for MMO RPG gamers" – and it calls exclusively offline RPGs limiting. It emphasizes the importance of Demon's Souls network connectivity and those ghosts the Souls games continue to proudly flounce around – those see-through phantoms of other players who were killed in battle, or who can be summoned to help you with your own problems.

So I'm struck by the clear parallels between this baby Demon's Souls and the games FromSoftware is still making. A piece of early concept art, for example, shows a luxurious grass field haunted by a large ring of stone in the middle, which looks so much like a Stonesword Key boss area in Elden Ring's verdant Limgrave.

Other concept art of a gnarled dragon stuck in a black pit glowing softly with red magma – Flamelurker, maybe – is reminiscent of several FromSoftware bosses from over the years, like Demon Firesage in Dark Souls.

According to McDonald, Japan Studio's notes emphasize that, while you may feel lonely in Demon's Souls' solitary journey, you are not alone because of all the other people playing, too. And after all this time, I think FromSoftware is still prioritize this heady mix of fear and belonging in its titles.

"Like watching the mona lisa being painted," agrees one comment on YouTube.

"If FromSoftware released the full Dark Souls design document, no one would be debating the lore": Creator of one of the highest-rated new roguelikes on Steam says hands-off storytelling was key.