system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Dark Souls] Does civilization exist, or are people living in some weird apocalypse?

In the Dark Souls games, everyone you meet wants to either kill you without explanation or else they're so apathetic it's depressing. Also, nearly every structure you see is overgrown or in ruin.

Is it like this everywhere? Do actual cities still exist, with normal, functioning people? Or is everyone just a melancholic wanderer, living out their last days before they're eventually turned into a hollow or killed by some horrible monster?
gpt
You see, each rekindling keeps civilization stable for thousands of years, it's only once a few millenia it gets this bad. Undead are the first sign the fires are waning, it can be centuries before everyone starts going Hollow.

By the time you begin your quest the whole world is hopeless. Attempts to contain the hollow and undead failed, the great Lords have succumbed or sit upon their crumbling thrones. Any civilization left has cast you away so they can continue their life until undeath takes them as well. 

You are witnessing the last sparks of the Age of Light. But all it takes is a single ember to light it again.