The brilliant Dark Souls series has surpassed 8.5m sales, and more than 3.25m of those were on PC.

The numbers come from a Japanese presentation by From Software, reported by Famitsu and relayed/made sense of on NeoGAF.

According to the numbers:

Dark Souls has sold 2,828,000 units worldwide

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition ("with Artorias of the Abyss") has sold 2,765,000 units worldwide

Dark Souls 2 has sold 2,311,000 units worldwide

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin has sold 600,000 units worldwide

That's a total of 8,504,000 sold

The PC-specific number comes from SteamSpy, which may not be entirely accurate. According to SteamSpy:

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition has sold 1,977,541 (+/- 33,243) units on Steam

Dark Souls 2 has sold 994,455 (+/- 23,621) units on Steam

Dark Souls 2: Scholars of the First Sin has sold 256,772 (+/- 12,021) units on Steam

That's a total of 3,228,768 sold (+/- 68,885)

However, SteamSpy's Dark Souls 2 PC figure is in dispute. Start with the Dark Souls 2 total of 2.3m. Subtract from that 1.2m - the figure Bandai Namco said it shipped within three weeks of Dark Souls 2 launch (before the PC version came out and could add to the total). Subtract another 350,000 for sales of Dark Souls 2 on PS3 in Japan, a version From Software published. That leaves around 700,000 attributable to PC. But that's nearly 300,000 fewer units than SteamSpy attributed to Dark Souls 2 on PC (994,455). Thank you commenters grassyknoll and CatButler for putting that in terms I could understand.

Dark Souls wasn't originally intended for PC, which seems ludicrous now. It was a fan petition - with more than 100,000 signatures - that encouraged publisher Bandai Namco to go ahead with it.

The PC version turned out to be a ropey port but was made good by patron saint of the Dark Souls community, Durante, and the DSFix mod.

Dark Souls 2 was released on PC as well as PS3 and Xbox 360 from the off - well, almost a month late, but more or less the same.

Dark Souls 3, announced only last month at E3, will be a PC, PS4 and Xbox One game. The godfather of Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, will co-direct it. Look for the game in early 2016, apparently.

This content is hosted on an external platform, which will only display it if you accept targeting cookies. Please enable cookies to view. Manage cookie settings And to think, all that for a game you can beat in half-an-hour.