In nearly every FromSoftware video game designed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the same charming scumbag shows up: Patches, a bald, sneering scavenger who likes to kick player characters off the edge of steep drops, then shamelessly beg for his life when they come looking for revenge. This article highlights the various appearances of Patches in games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and the recent Demon's Souls remake, while also offering some ideas on just why Miyazaki is so fond of this greedy little git.
William Vanderpuye, the English voice actor for Patches, is a third-degree black belt in Kyokushin Karate, and many fans of FromSoftware's "Soulsborne" RPGs like to joke that Vanderpuye's Karate expertise explains why Patches is so good at kicking people off ledges. As a London-born voice actor, Vanderpuye has consistently infused the character of Patches with elements of the "working-class lout" archetype seen in many British dramas and plays: ruthless, greedy, and cowardly, yet strangely likable, thanks to their shamelessness and ability to roll with the punches of life.
In the recently released Demon's Souls remake, Patches is more entertainingly despicable than ever, with updated voice work from Vanderpuye and graphically-advanced facial animations that match his dialogue - sneers and wide smiles when he's trying to trick players into his traps and wide-eyed fear whenever he's trying to weasel his way out of retribution. The Demon's Souls remake, in general, is a good starting point for players who want to see why Patches is such an iconic FromSoftware character, but Demon's Souls isn't the game in which Patches premiered.
Warning: The following sections contain spoilers for their corresponding games.
Before Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, or any of the other Soulsborne games, Miyazaki cut his teeth in game design by working as the director for two games in the Armored Core Mecha action franchise: Armored Core 4 and Armored Core: For Answer. In the latter, the player character is challenged by a mercenary code-named "Patches The Good Luck," who controls a customized Armored Core mech with a long-range sniper loadout and ECM equipment for stealth. Patches' appearance in this Armored Core title establishes two aspects of this character right off the bat: First, he prefers to fight in the most cowardly way possible, and second, he'll quickly surrender and beg the player for mercy is the fight starts to go against him.
In Demon's Souls, Patches' character is firmly established as a greedy trickster scoundrel who tries to swindle players with promises of treasure, fights defensively with a greatshield and spear when provoked, and becomes a merchant in the Nexus after players forgive him for his crimes. Players first encounter "Patches the Hyena" in Stonefang Tunnel, where he urges them to grab an item beneath a ledge, where a fiery Bear Bug lurks in ambush. He's next seen in the Shrine of Storms, where he lures players to the edge of a pit, then kicks them down into it, cackling at the prospect of scavenging the player's belongings after they starve to death. One could argue Miyazaki uses Demon's Souls' Patches as a warning for players, reminding them to always keep an eye out for traps and be alert to unexpected danger.
Although the Dark Souls trilogy takes place in a different fantasy setting, Dark Souls' version of Patches is almost completely identical to his Demon's Souls counterpart, albeit with slightly different weapons and the moniker of "Trusty." The Chosen Undead of the first Dark Souls encounters Patches in the Tomb of Giants, where they have to deal with two of his sinister schemes: First, Patches flips a lever to activate a booby-trapped bridge as the players tries to cross it. Second, he lures the players to the edge of a pit filled with Hollowed clerics, then kicks them in. After these two murder attempts and a good amount of groveling from Patches, he becomes a friendly, if greedy, merchant at Firelink Shrine, unless players identify themselves as one of the clerics he hates. In this game, the Miyazaki uses the distrustfulness of Patches to warn players about other NPCs like Petreus or Lautrec, who wind up becoming much more sinister and malevolent than Patches ever is.
The cosmic horror setting of Bloodborne is, yet again, a different world from Dark Souls (although some fans speculate Bloodborne's world is Demon's Souls' several hundred years in the future). Despite this difference in setting, Patches still makes an appearance in Bloodborne, this time in the grotesque form of a man-sized spider with a human head. After giving the players a Tonsil Stone in the Forbidden Woods, Patches lures the Good Hunter into the crumbling dream-realm of the Nightmare Frontier and kicks them off a cliff into a toxic swamp, all in an attempt to feed them to an eldritch god called Amygdala. After the Good Hunter slaughters Amygdala and corners Patches in the Lecture Hall, Patches does the usual begging for his life and becomes a randomly encountered merchant within the halls of the Chalice Dungeons. Miyazaki portrays Patches the Spider as an almost inspirational character in Bloodborne - a person who's on a first-name basis with eldritch gods and maintains his sense of self in the face of overwhelming nightmares.
"Unbreakable Patches," the version of the character encountered in Dark Souls 3, is identical to the Patches of the first Dark Souls, having survived centuries - if not millennia - of Undeath between Dark Souls 1 and 3 without ever going Hollow. In the base game of Dark Souls 3, players encounter Patches in the Cathedral of the Deep, where he dons the stolen Catarina armor of Siegward to trick them onto a descending bridge near a hostile giant, then tries to lock them up inside a bell tower near Firelink Shrine. After the Unkindled One escapes his two traps, Patches follows protocol and settles down as a friendly, if avaricious, merchant in Firelink Shrine. Two subsequent events in the plot of Dark Souls 3, however, reveal a hidden depth to the seemingly amoral Patches.
In Dark Souls 3, Patches shows an uncharacteristic amount of concern for Greirat, a fellow thief embroiling himself in increasingly dangerous heists. The normally cowardly Patches goes so far as to disguise himself in his stolen Catarina armor set to rescue Greirat, if the Unkindled One tells Patchs where he went. Then, in Dark Souls 3's Ringed City DLC, the player travels forward in time to the end of the world, encountering a kind-hearted knight named Lapp: an amnesiac Patches who enlists the player's help in recovering his memories. After regaining his old personality, Patches kicks the player off a cliff one last time - not to trap or kill them, but to guide them towards the exit of the catacombs they're in. It's a touching farewell gesture from an oddly heroic character who survived the entire Dark Souls series from beginning to end and a character Miyazaki ultimately portrayed as having perseverance equal to that of players who manage to beat FromSoftware's Soulsborne games.
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