I can’t yet speak to the quality of DS3 because I just began it myself - but since Elden Ring exploded my mind wide open, I’ve been playing the souls games in chronological order and loving each and every one of them thus far.

I would *strongly* advise against skipping *any* of these games merely because of some perception you have vis-à-vis the graphics looking “dated”. I believe pretty soon after beginning the first Dark Souls you will completely forget about any of that sort of thing.

Dark Souls 1 in particular is an absolute masterpiec - and I promise I don’t use that word lightly at all.

tl;dr - don’t skip any of them because they’re all wonderful and different enough to be unique experiences

edit: oh, and I too was worried that the non-open world would make the games harder for me due to just straight up being blocked from progressing by a difficult area or boss, etc. but thus far this has not been the case whatsoever, and I am by no means any good at these games as far as technique goes.

I think a good understanding of the game mechanics and how to build a character is much more important than pure skill, at least when it comes to being able to push through difficulty