“No company has contributed more to game design as an art form than FromSoftware. The Japanese firm, known for doing punishing yet rewarding games, has completely reshaped the action RPG. The studio knows like few others that its games are notoriously hard as nails, but it has also honed to a fine edge the precious craft of tailoring challenge through layered world-building, sumptuous mythology and cloaking atmosphere. ”
In Image: FromSoftware Logo
1. Dark Souls (2011)
In Image: Dark Souls Game Cover a FromSoftware Game
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Xbox 360
- Overview: The title that catapulted FromSoftware to worldwide prominence, Dark Souls plays as the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls and was responsible for the popularisation of the ‘Souls-like’ genre. Its delicate approach to level design, gorgeous interlocked world, and story that needed to be studied and decrypted established a structure that other games would chase.
The 2011 Game of the Year, Dark Souls, refined the prototypes created in Demon’s Souls and teased the sprawling interconnected world to a greater degree in the realm of Lordran. Discovery and exploration was the core design principles behind the game. Players who obliquely scrutinize every nook and cranny in the game are rewarded with secret passageways, paths that zigzag together shortcuts and backstory locked in item descriptions. The bonfire system is, in fact, the death mechanic of the game, in which players must choose where and when they’ll heal or level, functioning as a checkpoint/resource management system. It adds one more level of complexity to the game.
Some criticized the complexity of the game and argued it was “unfair.” But at its core the design is ultimately fair: each death imparts a lesson, encouraging players to adapt and improve. Part of the reason why Dark Souls saw such success wasn’t just down to its brutal difficulty, but the community it created. A solitary experience, the words other players left behind added an unusual social aspect to the game, regardless of their veracity. Dark Souls continues to stand as a bedrock title in FromSoftware’s catalog — and has had a mammoth impact on contemporary video game design.
2. Bloodborne (2015)
In Image: Bloodborne Game Cover a FromSoftware Game
- Platforms: PS4 The gothic horror style of Bloodborne, mixed with Lovecraftian themes, is a departure from the medieval fantasy setting of the Souls series. Its faster-paced action and creepy, ambiguous world have made it one of FromSoftware’s most beloved games.
- Overview: Set in the cursed city of Yharnam, Bloodborne encourages players to adopt a more aggressive style rather than defensive-oriented tactics. One new “regain” mechanic in the game enables players to restore lost health by parrying attacks quickly. This technique injects a frantic feel into the action, albeit a calendared one, as well as faster dodges and less focus on shields.
Bloodborne’s story centers on the player character — the Hunter — and his gradual revelation of the horrifying truths behind the city’s illness and the cosmic terrors that dwell beneath. It is the story of a descent into madness. Step into a world of fitted stone corridors, unified by coiled pathways that only seem to lead you further into an eventual encounter with what could be considered the embodiment of a gothic monster. As players traverse through cathedrals, woodlands and eldritch realities, all but one region is connected to every other, lending the whole a sense of cohesion and size.
Bloodborne has been praised not just for its combat and visual design, but also its approach to horror. It’s different than the action RPGs and horror titles I usually don’t play because it doesn’t resort to cheap scares; the horror instead comes from an ever pervasive sense of dread and existential terror.
3. Elden Ring (2022)
In Image: Elden Ring Game Cover Art a FromSoftware Game
- Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5.
- Overview: Elden Ring is the convergence of the Soulsborne formula and FromSoftware’s open-world design prowess. Created in partnership with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, Elden Ring invites players to The Lands Between, a large and interconnected world packed with lore, secrets, and plenty of obstacles that must be overcome.
Elden Ring takes the core gameplay loop from the Souls games — exploration, fighting, discovery — and expands it into a full-fledged open world. The title allows players to discover secret dungeons, fierce enemies and a unified global narrative with the freedom to roam a large world at their leisure. Towering castles, thick woods, and great plains are all skillfully blended into the map’s design, which features an emphasis on verticality and scale.
One of Elden Ring’s most exciting features is the room to grow in this character. Elden Ring provides players the opportunity to approach assignments in any order they choose, unlike previous titles where roads seemed more predetermined. Players now have more options for how to approach each battle with new equestrian combat as well as a more extensive range of weapons and spells available.
It’s clear that George R.R. Martin is a huge influence on the intricately layered and mythos-rich game mythos. While the story remains scattershot and open to interpretation, gamers eager to engage with it will find it more accessible. With Elden Ring, FromSoftware showed it could meld the vastness and freedom of modern open-world games with its punishing difficulty to make something that felt epic yet intimate.
4. Dark Souls III (2016)
In Image: Dark Souls Game Cover Art a FromSoftware Game
- Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
- Overview: The final entry in the Dark Souls trilogy, Dark Souls III cherry-picks past elements from all of the other games, but refines the formula to a razor’s edge. Dark Souls III makes an excellent end to the series, merging the elaborate level design and interconnecting world of the previous titles with the faster-paced combat of Bloodborne.
The world of the game had long since started to rot, the Age of Fire was now coming to a close. All of it, the world, even the monsters, are rooted in this idea of entropy and decay. The characters players return to from previous games have been corrupted over many, many years by the various games, creating a melancholy and closure in the game.
Quicker and slicker than its Decorporety of Souls predecessors, Dark Souls III splices in the rhythm and aggression of Bloodborne with the tactical depth of Dark Souls. Baldur’s Gate III features some of the most memorable bosses in the entire series, and many of these encounters provide an entirely different experience that puts a player’s patience, skill, and adaptability to the test.
Dark Souls III adds on these ideas for a more complete experience than either title, even if it doesn’t innovate in the way its forebears did. What sets the game apart in FromSoftware’s catalog is its labyrinthian setting, knippy combat and sumptuous lore.
5. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)
In Image: Seikro Shadows Die Twice Game Cover Art
- Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
- Overview: Set in a fictionalized version of Sengoku-period Japan, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice introduces some departures from the RPG mechanics of the Soulsborne games and is much more focused on precision, skill-based sword fighting. Eschewing frenetic button mashing for timing, parrying and stealth, it’s a breath of fresh air in a crowded action-adventure genre.
Players take on the role of Wolf, a shinobi on a quest to rescue his kidnapped master and go after those who have wronged him in Sekiro. Unlike previous games’ customisable protagonists, Wolf is a fully realized lead character with a backstory and clear goals. The plot, by contrast, is more readable, but it holds on to the idiosyncratic environmental storytelling that made FromSoftware famous.
Sekiro’s combat is built on a posture system that has you breaking through an enemy’s guard and finishing them off with the killing blow instead of reducing their health bar. It’s this idea that makes up a rhythm-based fighting system that rewards dexterity and perseverance, as players must learn to parry, avoid, and counter. The game is also vertical, with a grappling hook that allows varying movement and navigation through the terrain.
The Sekiro bosses very fast moves, react and precise timings which make them very tough. Yet every success is extremely rewarding, as mastery of skills is the name of the game. Sekiro was also often called Game of the Year and lauded for its brilliant combat system.
6. Demon’s Souls (2009 / 2020 Remake)
In Image: Demon Souls Game Cover Art
- Platforms: PS3 (original), PS5 (remake)
- Overview: Demon’s Souls was the game that kickstarted it all, introducing the world to FromSoftware’s unique blend of immersive world-building, cryptic narrative and punishing difficulty. The PS5 remake released in 2020 retains the core gameplay that turned the original into a cult hit but makes the classic available on newer systems — visually, at least.
The original Demon’s Souls was an unexpected hit — particularly in Western countries — thanks to its punishing difficulty and idiosyncratic design, which initially drew a cult audience. The Nexus: a hub-world structure, allowing players to tackle the five unique worlds in the game — each with their own separate themes, boss-battles, and things to do — in any order.
The 2020 version, developed by Bluepoint Games, not only authentically recreated the original, but in the process also carved out some stunning next-generation visuals, improved lighting and updated controls. Despite those refinements, the actually fun, challenging base gameplay is still intact. A new breed of players was acquainted with the game through the remake revival of the Soulsborne genre and die-hards appreciated how faithfully this landmark title was brought to life.
Demon’s Souls set the core design principles that would inform all of FromSoftware’s subsequent games, setting a template for everything that followed. But it remains an important chapter in video game history, and illustrates how bold and visionary the company was in pushing boundaries.
7. Dark Souls II (2014)
In Image: Dark Souls 2 Game Cover Art
- Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, PS4, Xbox One
- Overview: Due in part to Dark Souls II’s tonal and design shifts, many people in the gaming community think of it as the weakest game in the series. It’s still a solid addition to the series though, with oodles of content, colorful level design and some new features that set it apart from its forebear.
The core architect of the game, Hidetaka Miyazaki, was not directly responsible for the development of Dark Souls II, which employed some experimental approaches that diverged from the original design doc. The less interconnectedness and more uneven difficulty curve of the world’s design leads to a more split response. Yet Dark Souls II places new elements that deepen combat, such as power-stancing (dual-wielding) and adaptation.
The game’s DLC expansions, Crown of the Sunken King, Crown of the Old Iron King, and Crown of the Ivory King, include highly regarded hard material that adds complexity and variation to the main game. Dark Souls II is far from the slouch that some seem to believe, and while it might not quite achieve the peaks that the prior games reached, it deserves accolades for being as ambitious and willing to try something new.
8. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023)
In Image: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon Game Cover Art a FromSoftware Game
- Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC
- Overview: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is, with its thrilling return to FromSoftware’s mecha roots, intense, strategic combat with a modern approach to it. Boasting an intense Armored Core “return,” the game features strategic decision-making, rapid-paced action and deep customization.
In Armored Core VI, players control customisable robotic mechs, known as Armored Cores. Given the huge amount of customization options available in the game, players can change everything from mobility settings to weapon loadouts, giving each mech a wholly different feel from the next. The fast thinking and precise execution required of players to survive in the dynamic, strategic combat their foes encounter, whether they be gigantic monsters or entire armies of repetitive enemies.
Set in a distant future in which corporations struggle to control valuable resources on the planet of Rubicon, the game’s narrative high-concept comes through in its arthouse graphics and moody visuals. The story is more straightforward than the enigmatic tales of the Soulsborne games, but FromSoftware’s knack for world-building through its lore and environmental storytelling is still on display.
Armored Core VI provides a riveting experience to lifelong fans and newcomers alike by wrenching the tactical complexity and near-overwhelming customizability of the vintage Armored Core games into something that adheres to modern design sensibilities. Upon its release, FromSoftware’s mettle was challenged, proving their capability of producing titles that weren’t simply fantasy worlds.
FromSoftware have rightfully earned a reputation for hard-as-nuts gameplay, densely populated and intricately designed environments, and a commitment to crafting unforgettable experiences that linger with gamers long past the point where the final credits roll. From the origins of the Soulsborne genre with Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls to the Victorian horror of Bloodborne, the frenetic combat of Sekiro, and the expansive world of Elden Ring, each title addressed represents a key phase in the studio’s history.
Armored Core VI review: “FromSoftware goes its own way”Just after embrace the industry’s most significant current gaming trends without sinking too own their patriarch, the studio’s releases Armored Core VI and cements it as one of the most creative developers in the biz With each new release, FromSoftware dares to redefine what action role-playing games can be; creating incredible experiences that challenge, frustrate, and ultimately reward anyone brave enough to take on their worlds.
FromSoftware’s Distinctive Appeal in Game Design
And the reason is not simply its notoriously punishing gameplay but also the studio’s self-styled approach to making games. An enigmatic story combined with intricate environments and discovery makes for a unique experience for gamers.
Deep and Multi-Level Narration
Dark and mysterious, the story of FromSoftware games is part of what makes them special. Players fill contextual spaces in which the story unfolds through object descriptions, immersive environmental details, and vague NPC dialogue rather than on traditional narratives in these games. This creates a sense of mystery in the lore, and a sense of intrigue, since players now put it together themselves. The stories approach philosophical questions, such as what it means to exist and the cycles of life and death, or the pursuit of power. The multilayered narrative invites players to deepen their engagement with the game, long after it’s gone from their screen.
World Design and Environmental Storytelling
Another signature of FromSoftware’s games is their world-building. The studio is known for its elaborate sets, which are more than just backdrops: They’re central to the story. Expanding on that further, the different ruins, buildings and landscapes that litter Dark Souls and Bloodborne represent the world’s splendor, decay and history but they also represent stories of their own. The design of the world is interconnected with different locations that prompt exploration and the faintest of curiosity gets rewarded with secret passage or shortcuts. As they explore the game’s depths, players often return to spots they’ve already visited, taking in their surroundings with fresh eyes.
Discovery and Player Agency
The FromSoftware games value player agency: they give the player very little by way of content, and leave it to the player to explore. These games are close to nothing compared to its modern-day counterparts as they provide an absolutely little or no guidance whatsoever to players and allow them to navigate treacherous terrains and deadly enemies quite on their own. By the time players reach the final moments, with no clear markers or mission recommendations, there’s a real feeling of accomplishment and discovery as they pick apart the architecture of the setting, the behavior of enemies, and how the best micromanagement techniques can be deployed on a step-by-step basis. Such a hands-off design philosophy is one that helps provide a sharper, more immersive and impacting experience.
It is this perfect blend of gorgeous worlds, ephemeral storylines, and player-driven exploration that make the FromSoftware titles one of the most rewarding experiences in the modern history of video game releases.
In Summary
Whether through the crumbling, dead-strewn halls of Lordran, the evil alleys of Yharnam or the endless fields of The Lands Between, FromSoftware games are exercises in discovery, development and perseverance. ”All of those experiences are marks of what set their titles apart from the best of the best in gaming history.”