I'm just starting Dark Souls as a Warrior, and have encountered the first giant monster, archer, and sword-wielding opponents, and have found a shield and a sword, but I can't seem to equip either of them, and don't know why.
I can get to them in inventory, but when I select them, their "use" option has a line through it, and pressing that button does nothing.
I checked the wiki and it seems I should have plenty of Strength for the shield (I start with Strength 13)… is there some other requirement before I can equip them, or am I just being stumped by the UI?
Best Answer
It sounds like you might be on your Inventory screen rather than the Equipment screen, which is where you need to go to equip gear and set your quick-access items. Does the screen you're looking at look something like this?
If so, you want to use RB/R1 (or your controls' equivalent) to switch to the Equipment screen, which should look like this:
From this screen, you can select the slot that you want to equip something to. From top to bottom, left to right, those are: weapon (2), shield or off-hand item (2), armor (4), quick-access items (5), arrows (2), crossbow bolts (2), and rings (2).
If you have multiple weapons or off-hand items equipped, you can switch between them using Left and Right on the D-pad (or your controls' equivalent) during gameplay.