The Pursuer of Dark Souls 2

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

Sooooo

Pursuer, Dark Souls 2, is a character that…

lemme copy the description from the wiki…

”The Pursuer is a boss in Dark Souls 2. A giant, aggressive knight that relentlessly "pursues" the player. Heavily armored in black, it wields the Pursuer's Ultra Greatsword with a corresponding "heavy hitter" moveset. He can move very quickly for such a large enemy, and can, in particular, close rapidly on the player from a distance.”

This, as well as the Pursuer is fought multiple times throughout the game.

This is very similar to Lezian, which I found interesting, ya know?

[Duxredux he/him]

I'm not surprised that there is another character in media with the title Pursuer with similar attributes. The name is meant to evoke the fear of being chased or hunted, and it wouldn't be much of a pursuer if it was weak or too slow to catch the player. Pursuit to me has a more individualized connotation than simply being hunted. A hunter will get prey where it can, while someone in pursuit is chasing a specific target to the exclusion of another agenda. That wouldn't really be conveyed by a random mook that gets one-shot or a villain-of-the-week that shows up once.

I would guess that both Brandon and the Dark Souls team came upon the name "Pursuer" either initially as a name that fit an existing enemy and then fleshed out the design to evoke a similar fear of being pursued.

[Ninth of the Night]

Brandon has played the souls games, or at least Elden Ring. There are a few examples of his stories being influenced by various video games, mostly Souls and Final Fantasy.

Yumi spoilers

Spoiler

The concept of Yumi was clearly influenced by FFX. I noticed the similarities on my first read of the book. Brandon even mentions it in the postscript.

Not saying that Lezian was exactly inspired by the Pursuer in DS2, considering it's a basic title with obvious implications, that anyone could come up with. But I do like to think there's some correlation there.

[Epicdaf]

Next time I get to play DS2 I will have to pay more attention. Great catch btw!