How do I use the sword and shield I found?

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?

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1 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.

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