Before Elden Ring: Ranking of FromSoftware Games

FromSoftware was founded in 1986 and is still going strong today. In 1994, they transitioned from creating productivity software to game development. FromSoftware is best known these days for the Dark Souls games and the newly released Elden Ring, but they weren’t always the triple-A studio they are now, and spent much of their early years toiling away in obscurity.

FromSoftware was recognized for making unique, low-budget games before inventing the third-person hack-and-slash RPG, which became a popular game genre. Among other gaming genres like sports, strategy, First person shooters and even popular online slots. And thus, there is a huge collection of top games developed by FromSoftware, but here are some of their finest games that came before Elden Ring:

Otogi: Myth of Demons

Otogi: Myth of Demons is a hack-and-slash game based on Japanese history and mythology that was published by Sega after they became a third-party developer. The gameplay is similar to that of the Devil May Cry series, in that you may utilize numerous weapons, rush across stages, and juggle your foes while attempting to get high combos.

Despite the fact that Otogi: Myth of Demons was an early Xbox exclusive, the visuals and lighting effects are still impressive. It also lets you destroy significant portions of the world and has about 30 stages, which is quite an accomplishment for a game that is over 15 years old.

Shadow Tower

Shadow Tower is a slow-paced dungeon crawler that is comparable to the King’s Field series. Shadow Tower, in contrast to King’s Field, places a greater focus on horror, with a darker environment and more frightening opponent design.

Unlike a traditional RPG, where experience points are granted to level up your character, Shadow Tower allows you to gradually develop your character by defeating certain opponents that raise a specific stat. There is also an item in the game that allows you to manually raise a stat to give your character more personality.

Armored Core Series

In 1997, the Armored Core series began with a game simply titled Armored Core for the PlayStation 1. Armored Core: Verdict Day, the series’ last chapter, was published in 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The Armored Core series follows a silent protagonist who works as a mercenary within Armored Cores, massive mechs designed for combat. You gain money by completing tasks, which you then spend to enhance your Armored Core. Some games in the series also have arena modes where you can compete against other pilots for extra money or bragging rights. And this concludes the FromSoftware games you may not be familiar with. It’s all familiar territory from here on out.

Dark Souls

Dark Souls is the game that most people associate with FromSoftware, elevating them from a competent developer to a famous name. It really doesn’t need an introduction.

High difficulty was mostly used by creators in the early days of gaming to extend the playability of their notoriously short games. This notion was transformed into the game’s major attraction in Dark Souls. Its goal of being a purposely difficult product gained it and its sequels a devoted fanbase and a reputation that still resonates in today’s gaming market.

Dark Souls II

The squabbling continues. For all versions of this title, critic and user scores diverge by at least ten points. Dark Souls II is frequently regarded by fans as the worst game in the Souls series. Players have complained about the game’s excessive spam, imbalanced healing mechanisms, and absurd, immersion-breaking level design.

To say the least, recent FromSoftware games are massive and ambitious. To suggest that properly critiquing one would take a long time to comprehend what’s going on behind the hood is definitely an understatement. Dark Souls II is an excellent example of how our gaming expectations have shifted over the last decade.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

This is when things start to get a little tense. On each edition, the overall user and reviewer scores vary by at least ten points. It’s difficult to determine if this is due to the fact that Sekiro isn’t a Souls game, or because fans aren’t thrilled with how the game came out in comparison to reviewers.

Sekiro does away with a lot of the RPG components that were present in the Souls games and even Bloodborne. As a result, the playstyle is much more concentrated, bringing it closer to a character-action game with its increased flexibility of movement, stealth elements, and redesigned combat. If that’s the goal with this title, then it’s probably a good idea for it to be a fresh IP at the very least.

Bloodborne

At least this time, there isn’t much of a difference between users and reviewers. Bloodborne appears to have done better than Sekiro as a new IP among FromSoftware fans. The game appears to be a cross between the Souls series and Sekiro. It retains a significant number of RPG systems to provide players with a variety of options, as well as faster, more aggressive combat, which Sekiro aimed to make more dynamic.

It’s difficult to determine if current FromSoftware games are being appraised on their own merits or in comparison to the Souls series. The IPs for Sekiro, Bloodborne, and the Souls series are all distinct. They may have some similarities, but they all try to achieve various goals by executing them in different ways.