FromSoftware’s Dark Souls lit a fire under the games industry when it released in 2011. A successor to 2009’s PS3 exclusive Demons’ Souls, the game’s massive popularity quickly saw its style of game design immediately adapted by dozens of “Soulslike” clones.
While FromSoftware has expanded its own sub-genre with games like the open world Elden Ring and its multiplayer spin-off Elden Ring Nightreign, director Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn’t believe the studio actually invented the genre.
In a recent interview with Game Informer, Miyazaki explained that a lot of the core gameplay mechanics of FromSoftware’s games have existed before. For example, stamina management was key to Capcom’s Monster Hunter, punishing difficulty is the core of Ghosts and Goblins, and the structure of the Souls series’ worlds is similar to games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
“I know we’ve been credited [with inventing the term ‘Soulslike’], but in terms of the game design, this idea of having death and learning as part of the core game cycle is something that the gaming audience was perhaps ready for,” the director said. “But there just wasn’t the perfect answer for that appetite just yet.”
The Souls series wasn’t even the first FromSoftware game to be incredibly punishing. In fact, while unpopular at the time, the studio’s King’s Field series on the original PlayStation was reknowned for its punishing difficulty, but the popularity of Dark Souls showed that the market had evolved enough to make punishing games successful.
“What we discovered is it is okay to make games with death as part of its core gameplay loop, and our answer happened to land and resonate with various audiences,” the director said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a new invention, per se, it was more the FromSoftware DNA and our game design overlapped with what was perhaps missing from the market.”
Nevertheless, Dark Souls and Elden Ring have heavily influenced the direction of many games, and in an industry where it is so often difficult to nail down what genre something is (Metroidvania, anyone?), it’s clear that the very specific type of action-adventure game Dark Souls is was created by Miyazaki and his team.
While Miyazaki did not work on the most recent release from FromSoftware, Elden Ring Nightreign, the iconic game director is currently working on the Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods, a new PvPvE title.
