With Elden Ring set to release soon, now's a good time to rewind and discover 10 years of King's Field. This pioneering, but thoroughly obscure line of first-person RPGs marked FromSoftware's first efforts at video game development and at the kind of oppressive atmosphere Souls games are known for.

We have to go back 15 years before Demon's Souls to the King's Field series. Where did that atmosphere, that epic sense of hopelessness come from, though? No, FromSoftware's RPG history doesn't begin with Demon's Souls. didn't just decide one day to segue from sci-fi mech battles to gothic melee combat. The Souls series didn't originate in a vacuum, though. From being known for the quirky Armored Core mech shooter series to a Sony launch-day system seller, From has gone a long way.Įlden Ring is set to bring the From Software formula to an open world environment

And while Bluepoint created it, the Demon's Souls remake remains one of a handful of PlayStation 5-exclusive titles out right now. Elden Ring, their upcoming title is being created in collaboration with George RR Martin of Game of Thrones fame. And when Ubisoft 'borrows' your combat system wholesale, you're definitely onto something.įromSoftware are now something of a household name. The past three Assassin's Creed games have mimicked FromSoftware's shoulder-buttons-and-triggers control configuration.

It would only be accurate to say that game and its successors and spin-offs in the Souls series seriously transformed the action-RPG genre. A little over 10 years ago, Demon's Souls launched on the PS3, an action RPG import from a little-known Japanese developer named FromSoftware.

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