The Soul of Soulslike &#8211; Game Informer

The Soul of Soulslike – Game Informer

Table of Contents

Introduction

The action genre’s relationship with difficulty has been complicated.

In their earliest stages, action games were often unreasonably demanding, but this was not always by design. These difficulty spikes and trial-and-error sequences were a result of trailblazing developers figuring out the best practices for requiring precision from players while remaining fair.

During the advent of cinematic storytelling in gaming, many action titles offered more leniency in favor of delivering a compelling narrative that a large portion of the audience could easily experience. As a result, beating many action titles during the late ’90s and through the mid-2010s felt more like a formality than a challenge to conquer. Subsequently, games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Meat Boy delivered the kinds of white-knuckled experiences challenge-driven players craved. However, the action genre reached a major milestone in 2009, as a brutally tough, seemingly obscure game out of Japan emerged as a fan favorite and went on to become one of the most influential video games of all time.

The Man Behind The Madness

I’ll never forget the first time I met Hidetaka Miyazaki, the representative director and president of the Tokyo-based From Software, several years ago. At the end of a busy day at E3 2018, I had an interview with another From Software employee for a project the studio was working on. As I opened the door to the private space where I was to sit down for the interview, I came face-to-face with Miyazaki, a man who has reached an iconic status few in the industry have matched. It was my first interaction with him, and I had no idea what to expect. Was this man, who has been directly responsible for so many legendarily difficult games, going to give me a similarly challenging time now that I’ve walked into this conversation with him unprepared?

Thankfully, that was not the case, as he was calm, accommodating, and, at times, excited to joke around. I left that interview satisfied with how it went, but looking forward to a time when I could sit down with a clearer direction to dive into what will ultimately come to define his career: the Soulslike genre. Thankfully, years later, I would have that chance.

Hidetaka Miyazaki

Hidetaka Miyazaki joined From Software in 2004 as a designer for the Armored Core series. After creating and directing Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, he was promoted to president of the studio in 2014. In the time since, he has directed multiple acclaimed titles, including Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.

Walking into a dimly lit room, I’m much more prepared this time, but I have similar anxieties. Miyazaki greets me with a warm smile and a handshake and says he’s excited for our conversation. As we sit down, I tell him I want to talk about some topics he might not be expecting. The aforementioned room was themed after Elden Ring, but I had little intention of getting into the weeds of From Software’s latest massive hit. Instead, I want to dive deep into another topic: his role in the explosion of the Soulslike genre. When he hears this, he perks up. And as the conversation goes on, it becomes evident that he’s enjoying the talk – so much so that his team asks to extend the conversation beyond the set time.

Miyazaki’s jovial disposition and eagerness to delve into the intricacies of the now-extremely popular action subgenre display an evident passion and enthusiasm for how the genre has evolved. However, there’s one catch: He doesn’t want to take credit for it.

“The so-called ‘Soulslike’ genre, I wouldn’t necessarily say we invented it,” Miyazaki says. “I know we’ve been credited, 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. But there just wasn’t the perfect answer for that appetite just yet.”

Demonic Beginnings

At the time, Miyazaki, who joined From Software in 2004, was a coder, designer, and director for the Armored Core series. He heard about an internal high-fantasy project, with an emphasis on difficulty, being developed following a proposal from Sony, which immediately piqued his interest. Unfortunately, the project was struggling to get off the ground. Miyazaki inquired about stepping into a leadership role for the game, and the studio viewed putting the title in the hands of a less-experienced developer as low-risk since it already seemed to be going nowhere.

By pulling inspiration from King’s Field, a late-’90s and early-’00s action series by From Software, and instilling the sense of challenge he felt was missing from the then-modern action-game scene, Miyazaki established something that harkened back to the hardcore fantasy action RPGs of old. At the same time, he wanted to take advantage of modern technology, like non-intrusive online cooperation and playing with the balance of risk and reward as it pertains to how the player behaves post-death. The result was a eureka moment for Miyazaki and, subsequently, the rest of the games industry.

The developers implemented a “Souls” system, in which players can retrieve lost upgrade resources dropped after death, enabling Miyazaki’s team to create a novel interplay between life, death, and rebirth. “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,” Miyazaki says. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a new invention, per se; it was more the From Software DNA and our game design overlapped with what was perhaps missing from the market.”

Miyazaki’s project was revealed in 2008 as Demon’s Souls and released on Japanese PlayStation 3s just four months later in February 2009, an uncommonly short promotional cycle for that time in the industry. The third-person action title emphasized precise inputs, pattern recognition, and learning from your mistakes. And perhaps most notoriously, punishing difficulty.

“I know we get a lot of credit saying that our games are difficult, but it’s not a matter of simply cranking up the difficulty; it’s doing so fairly,” Miyazaki says. “When players are killed and they can understand why they were killed in an instance, and it feels justified, that makes sense. That’s the game we’re trying to achieve. And I know a lot of players out there are probably going to disagree: ‘What are you talking about? This game doesn’t make sense! What the heck?’ But we try to make sure that there is a learning curve and a feedback loop that the players are able to extract that they can bring into the next attempt. We believe in difficult games, but not games that are unjustly or unfairly so.”

The challenging boss battles we now associate with the Soulslike genre did not translate well to demos at expos like Tokyo Game Show or internal build reviews at Sony, leading to low confidence at the publisher. When combined with poor optimization late in the development cycle, Sony decided against investing localization resources to bring the game to Western audiences, a decision that former president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, later admitted to Game Informer in 2012 that he regretted. “We underestimated the quality of the game, and to be honest, the media in Japan did the same,” Yoshida said in that interview. “We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making.”

Thankfully, Atlus stepped in to publish it in North America in October 2009, while Bandai Namco handled the European release in June 2010. The decision ended up being a wise one, as Demon’s Souls launched to overwhelmingly positive reviews across the globe, including a 9 out of 10 from Game Informer, and earned an 89 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic. And although sales started slowly in Japan, positive word of mouth spread rapidly, causing a massive spike in global sales, which boosted North American publisher Atlus’ profits for the year and earned it a Sony Greatest Hits label designation.

By the end of 2009, Demon’s Souls had become an award-winning critical darling in the US with a strong following among hardcore gaming communities. The success and acclaim galvanized Miyazaki and his vision. “Every time we release a game, there is some feedback loop that happens for us as a studio, and when we released Demon’s Souls, I think that gave us a huge confidence boost that perhaps there is something here that translated into Dark Souls and then that continued to grow and expand,” Miyazaki says. “Every time we put something out there, we’re able to confirm that what we’re doing is not that far off of what the fans, the audiences, are looking for, and that gives us a lot of courage in our decision-making process and what we put out into the world.”

With Demon’s Souls successfully bringing the earliest version of Miyazaki’s vision to the masses, the developers at From Software turned their eyes toward making a bigger impact. Partnering with its European publisher for Demon’s Souls, Bandai Namco, the studio aimed to bring this new category of games to a broader audience: multiplatform gamers.

A Decidedly Dark Turn

Though Sony owns the Demon’s Souls IP, From Software wanted to create the Demon’s Souls successor for Xbox and PC players in addition to PlayStation owners. As a result, Miyazaki doubled down on the dark fantasy themes and created a spiritual successor that could be published across PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

By using freeform development processes that allowed developers across the team to contribute in meaningful ways and drawing on various cultures’ mythologies, including Greek, Japanese, Norse, and others, From Software elevated the subgenre it was beginning to carve out within the action space. The first Dark Souls introduced the Soulslike staple bonfire checkpoints, where players could mark their progress.

Miyazaki once again returned to the role of director, applying the lessons he learned directing Demon’s Souls to take these abstract concepts and deliver them into a final product elevated beyond that PS3 exclusive. “My approach of making games as the game director is like sandwiching from a very high conceptual level and painting the vision, the final image, of what we’re trying to achieve, as well as going really granular on some of the detailed elements of what the players experience,” Miyazaki says. “By sandwiching the game development process, the middle almost has only one place to go, which is completing that whole experience.”

Dark Souls, much like its spiritual predecessor, launched to critical acclaim when it arrived in 2011, with the console versions earning an 89 on Metacritic, including an 8.75 out of 10 from Game Informer. It also took home numerous awards at the end of the year. Prior to the 2014 release of Dark Souls II, From Software announced that the first Dark Souls had sold more than 2 million units worldwide. Today, Dark Souls is credited as one of the most influential games and revered for how well it polished the formula established by Demon’s Souls.

Borne In Blood

Regardless of his role on the project, which is almost always director, Miyazaki has remained heavily involved with the level design, highlighting the importance of the world the player progresses through in any one of his games. This remained true, even as he was named president of From Software in 2014.

“Of course, the high-level, conceptual stuff might be easy to imagine, but the details that I pick and choose to oversee myself, the level design is one of them because I think that experience really creates and raises the floor of what players are going to feel and experience through the game design,” he says. “I’ll look at what’s being done and say, ‘Alright. This, this, this, and this, I’m going to oversee because I know which points in that experience are going to be the most effective and sandwich the high-level vision plus the details that players see.”

Though he stepped away from the director’s role with 2014’s Dark Souls II, so he could focus on a new step forward in the genre, Miyazaki remained involved via a high-level supervisory role. Technology and budgets had improved for the sequel, but directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura did not want to meddle with the established formula or acclaimed controls. Instead, they drilled into what made Dark Souls such a beloved title. And it worked, garnering a 9.75 from Game Informer, contributing to a 91 on Metacritic, and surpassing the original Dark Souls’ sales in just one year, signaling a bright future for the now-established franchise.

From Software successfully followed up its acclaimed Dark Souls debut, but Miyazaki was hard at work on the next evolution of the genre, deviating from the “Souls” brand in favor of a wholly new IP. From Software reunited with Demon’s Souls publisher, Sony, to deliver Bloodborne just one year after Dark Souls II as a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

Bloodborne borrows heavily from the Dark Souls formula, with intentional, third-person action combat, RPG-style progression, bonfire-style lantern checkpoints, and skill-check bosses enveloping the entire experience. From Software retained the dark fantasy inspiration, leaning heavily on Lovecraftian themes and even more abstract storytelling to get across its rich lore. Bloodborne also introduced faster combat, which proved to be a point of resonance with many new and longtime fans.

When I mention that Bloodborne was the From Software game that finally clicked with me, Miyazaki perks up. “Bloodborne is a special game for me as well, so I was very happy to hear you say that,” he remarks. “[For] a couple of reasons: The first one being it was probably the most challenging development cycle we’ve had from a studio perspective. The second and perhaps bigger element is how personal it was for me in the sense that I’ve imparted a lot of my own ideas into this game, whether it be the story, the world-building component, or even the game mechanics and the game systems that are in place. It is perhaps the strongest reflection of my type of flavoring of a game that one can experience.”

From Software originally chose Bandai Namco to publish its Dark Souls series in hopes of reaching the widest audience due to its publishing across all major platforms, but Bloodborne defied its single-platform release, outselling any Souls game to date. And it wasn’t just From Software’s ever-growing reputation that bolstered those sales, as the game is often heralded as one of the greatest games of the 2010s, earning a 9.75 from Game Informer and a 92 on Metacritic.

Following Bloodborne, Miyazaki returned as a director for the Dark Souls series in Dark Souls III, this time splitting directorial duties with Dark Souls II co-director Yui Tanimura and Bloodborne designer Isamu Okano. Dark Souls III plays like a convergence between the Dark Souls franchise and Bloodborne, with the faster combat and storytelling methods of Bloodborne permeating the namesake franchise. The result is perhaps the most well-rounded Dark Souls game, continuing the series and studio’s excellence. As of March 2024, Bandai Namco reported the Dark Souls series had sold more than 37 million units – a number topped only within the publisher by the Tekken series, which had a 16-year head start.

The series and its Demon’s Souls predecessor inspired the coinage of the term “Soulslike,” which describes any game – From Software-developed or otherwise – that uses the core tenets established by the studio through Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls, and Bloodborne. The term was necessitated by the sheer volume of games that began emerging, which drew heavy inspiration from the work of Miyazaki and his team.

Setting The Industry Ablaze

The continued success of From Software’s myriad Souls-style games spread across the games industry. Once the formula was proven successful, the Soulslike genre became one of the standard types of action titles, replacing the stylish, combo-driven slashers of the 2000s with a more methodical subgenre popularized by Miyazaki and his teams.

One of the earliest and most prominent examples came from Team Ninja, a studio known for its stylish and challenging action games. The Ninja Gaiden franchise is a different brand of challenging action titles, but by developing an all-new IP, Nioh, Team Ninja was able to embrace the From Software brand of action.

“To put it simply and honestly, the commercial and critical success of Dark Souls and Bloodborne was a major reason behind the development and release of Nioh,” head of Team Ninja and managing executive officer of Koei Tecmo Games, Fumihiko Yasuda says. “When the development of Nioh resumed in 2014 after several interruptions, it’s true that nearly all of the small initial team members, including myself, were players who favored Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, and so we were inspired by those titles and led to the decision that we as Team Ninja should create a game that would directly appeal to hardcore gamers once again.”

After several years of development, Nioh released to critical acclaim and has since spawned one sequel in 2020, with another on the way in 2026. Team Ninja also further explored the Soulslike genre with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty in 2023. But Team Ninja wasn’t the only studio to draw direct inspiration from Miyazaki’s works. Lords of the Fallen from Deck13 and CI Games hit the market in 2014 as one of the earlier triple-A games to show clear Dark Souls inspiration. However, with 2023’s Lords of the Fallen reboot, developer Hexworks and publisher CI Games made their catalyst even more obvious.

“For Lords of the Fallen 2023, I think part of the team’s mission was to try and envisage the Dark Souls 3.5 of their dreams; they were quite intentional about that,” CI Games creative portfolio strategist David Valjalo says.

And perhaps the game that veers closest to From Software’s Bloodborne, Lies of P, arrived from developer Neowiz in 2023. The game loosely adapted the original 1883 novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, while faithfully incorporating From Software’s concepts. Director Ji Won Choi acknowledges that the genre’s popularity and business viability played a significant role in creating a game that veers close to Miyazaki’s creations, but Choi’s observations on the state of the genre and the team’s action and melee combat pedigree also helped push them toward Lies of P.

“This genre was a challenge I wanted to take on,” Choi says. “Despite the popularity of the Soulslike genre, there are still few titles, aside from those made by From Software and a few other studios, that have achieved significant commercial success compared to other genres. This proves that the Soulslike genre is a challenging genre to create a well-made game, and it motivated us to do even better.”

But not every entry in the genre is so straightforward. Developers have taken the core tenets of Soulslike gameplay and adapted them to various styles of play. Developer Aggro Crab created Another Crab’s Treasure, a more lighthearted game about a hermit crab who lost his shell due to unpaid taxes, with the express intention of changing up the typical Soulslike elements while remaining true to the wider formula.

“I think calling games ‘Soulslikes’ has kept a lot of devs stuck in a loop of recreating Dark Souls; and in my opinion, the best Dark Souls game has been made already, and it’s called Dark Souls,” Aggro Crab creative director Caelan Pollock says. “It’s a deeply imperfect game, and that’s why people like it and why it’s resonated so deeply with players and throughout the industry. I think when you try to mimic every aspect of that experience, you’re really not ending up with something worth paying attention to. So, a big part of the decision to mix things up was just wanting to stand out, but it’s also because of a deep belief that the genre can be more. We made a gamble on the community being ready for that.”

And the genre’s influence has stretched beyond the realm of 3D action titles and into the 2D space with games like Salt and Sanctuary, Dead Cells, and the Blasphemous series.

“In the case of Blasphemous 1, that was a hard thing to do, because we were really inspired by the Souls games, but there were some points of the combat that we felt we didn’t want to go in that direction,” Blasphemous designer and writer Maikel Ortega says. “The thing we decided to pick was the feeling of weight of the main characters in the Souls game without having the actual stamina, and more importantly, the feeling of exploration; in Souls games, you are driven by your own curiosity; you’re exploring something just because you feel like it. There’s no clear path for you, and that’s something that was a core principle for us.”

The developers I spoke with represent only a small portion of the creators who have drawn significant influence from Hidetaka Miyazaki and his teams at From Software. The Soulslike elements have become so pervasive throughout the industry that it’s a hackneyed reference point for games media and players alike. Saying a game “is like Dark Souls” became a joke because so many games were borrowing pieces of that puzzle.

When I ask Miyazaki about the many developers who have released games that draw clear inspiration from his works, he welcomes them with open arms. “Of course, we are very aware that these games exist, but we think there is almost this coexistence or symbiotic type of relationship,” he says. “It’s very stimulating for us to see a different team take a similar concept from a completely different angle and interpretation and add their own set of values to that experience. When we switch to the consumer side, it’s like, ‘Wow, we didn’t think of that approach’ or ‘We didn’t think of that way of interpreting this type of core concept.’ So, I think it’s great that there is this sort of subgenre that exists where we can also stimulate others and be stimulated by their creations.”

Even with the industry embracing the genre as Miyazaki pursued other games like 2018’s VR title Déraciné – including Sony and developer Bluepoint Games remaking Demon’s Souls as one of its big launch games for the PlayStation 5 – the studio returned to the genre in 2019 to remind everyone that they are not only the trailblazers, but also the masters of the Soulslike.

Back from the Shadows

As Miyazaki told me, he enjoys checking out the works of others in the Soulslike space, and if the team sees something in another title it thinks would make a From Software game better, it will not hesitate to incorporate it. Perhaps that’s why the first From Software Soulslike game in three years – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – expanded the studio’s work into new directions.

Originally conceived as a new entry in the Tenchu series, which From Software acquired from Activision in 2004, the studio began development shortly after the launch of Bloodborne in 2015. The concept quickly grew beyond the stealth-focused series and became its own, original IP.

Although many of the trademarks of the Dark Souls series are present in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – like exploration-based gameplay, skill-based third-person combat, and challenging boss battles, many of the RPG elements, like custom characters and robust stat upgrades, were excluded. However, by incorporating more defensive play and stealth elements, Sekiro expanded the genre into new realms.

“I would say Sekiro was a big innovation, more differentiating game in how we interpret that is the sort of tempo between offense and defense, how players interpret, ‘Okay, now is my turn to attack. Now is my turn to dodge or roll,’” Miyazaki says. “I think the parry mechanic and how that plays into the larger gameplay tempo was quite different from a lot of the other so-called Soulslikes that have been part of the genre.”

Miyazaki tells me the relationship between offense and defense was something he had been pondering since before developing Bloodborne. “In Sekiro, it appears in its clearest form that I think the philosophy can embody,” he says. “Personally, I think there’s one more level we can crank it up to and sharpen that and home in on that mechanic even more, but I think Sekiro was a big turning point.”

When it launched in 2019, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice emerged as yet another hit for From Software, once again garnering critical acclaim, including a 9 from Game Informer, and a Metacritic average of around 90. It also earned Game of the Year honors at The Game Awards – a first for From Software – and from various other awards shows and outlets. Fittingly, it proved to be another huge success for From Software and Bandai Namco, selling more than 10 million units in its first four years.

The changes Miyazaki and his team installed into the genre were clearly successful, but little did players know that From Software was hard at work on something that would reach far beyond any of the accomplishments of its work to this point, including the sky-high success of the Dark Souls trilogy. And in the lead up to 2022, Miyazaki’s masterpiece came into focus.

The Ascension

Even in a fast-evolving industry like gaming, significant touchpoints, cultural phenomena, and landscape-altering works only emerge every few years. Miyazaki already had a few of those under his belt thanks to the Souls games, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, but even with those on his résumé, he was ready to bring the gameplay style to the next level.

Amidst the second half of Sekiro’s development cycle, Miyazaki took on an additional directorial project. This time, he wanted to more directly evolve the mechanics in Dark Souls rather than deviate from them as he did with Sekiro. However, he wanted to give players more freedom than ever before through a truly open world. And thus, Elden Ring, a game that will almost certainly come to define not only Miyazaki’s career, but the decade of gaming as a whole, was conceived.

“With Elden Ring, it’s that sense of adventure that you’re exploring and journeying through this massive, massive world,” Miyazaki says. “At the same time, within this massive world, there are a lot of unknowns that must be uncovered, as well as threats and fears that impose themselves upon the player. That exploration and adventure was something that I, myself, wanted to see. I think it is a very primitive form of enjoyment and interpretation of this type of fantasy adventure.”

By introducing a massive open world into the formula, players could better pace their playthroughs through exploration and circuitous routes around enemies that would have been progress blockers in the studio’s other games. And if a boss was too difficult, players could save it for later and focus on leveling their character through other non-linear challenges. Through this, From Software could keep the punishing difficulty that has remained a trademark for the genre, while making it more approachable for players of all skill levels.

Although the team wanted to continue the open-to-interpretation storytelling, where players must pick up narrative clues from NPC dialogue, items, and the environment itself, From Software enlisted the services of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin to lay the world-building foundation and develop the backstories of the characters. From there, Miyazaki and his narrative team evolved the more human, benevolent demigods into the grotesque creatures players see in the final game. Miyazaki evolved the world and characters from Martin’s starting point so drastically that he theorized that even the Game of Thrones creator would be surprised by the final product.

“As a player walks through this world, I know that they have a very fragmented understanding of the lore, the surroundings, and the type of monsters, whereas I don’t,” Miyazaki says. “So, the map and level design are supposed to serve as a guide, in a way, to help players pick up more information and piece together what they think that world is. That is the reason I level design myself, to make sure that those moments aren’t lost.”

This approach allowed From Software to create a cohesive experience where the level design, artwork, animation, and lore coalesced into something greater than anything From Software had done before. The high-level conceptual vision, supported by an extreme attention to detail, brought each piece of the overall gameplay experience into the forefront, delivering a game that Miyazaki touts as “in a league of its own.”

When Elden Ring launched in 2022, hype was at a fever pitch for the latest evolution of the genre that From Software and Miyazaki had pioneered. The final product somehow surpassed even the lofty expectations of the community. The console versions secured a 96 out of 100 on Metacritic, including 10 out of 10 scores from Game Informer and several other prominent outlets. At year’s end, Elden Ring nearly swept Game of the Year honors, including at The Game Awards and from Game Informer. Since its launch, some have elevated it to among the greatest games ever released. As of this writing, Elden Ring has sold more than 30 million copies, making it one of the highest-selling video games ever and the fastest-selling Bandai Namco game to date.

But none of this was accidental. Though the successes of the Soulslike genre rest primarily on his shoulders, Miyazaki understands that the road to this point, as well as the fans who have provided feedback dating all the way to Demon’s Souls, are to thank for the studio and genre’s current successes. “Everything leading up to Elden Ring has been built upon these bricks that we’ve established and fortified over the years,” he says. “That audience feedback loop is definitely very encouraging for us every time.”

Following the successful launch of Elden Ring in 2022, From Software delivered even more open-world exploration and rewarding battles through a vast expansion called Shadow of the Erdtree, followed by a 2025 multiplayer roguelite game called Elden Ring: Nightreign, which Miyazaki was not directly involved with. With Shadow of the Erdtree delivering some of the most exciting battles in the genre’s history and Elden Ring: Nightreign showcasing the studio isn’t afraid to continue experimenting with the Soulslike formula, From Software further cemented itself as the undisputed industry leader of the modern action game space.

A Bright Future

With Elden Ring development complete and the game praised as one of the greatest of all time, From Software and Miyazaki have turned their attention to a new game called The Duskbloods, which will debut exclusively for Switch 2 in 2026. Miyazaki once again stepped into the director role, with the focus on bringing more multiplayer twists to the Soulslike genre.

With a PvPvE format, where players must band together to defeat AI enemies, in addition to competitive elements between the human-controlled players, The Duskbloods signals yet another experimental twist for From Software in the genre it pioneered. However, Miyazaki has assured fans that just because The Duskbloods is more multiplayer-focused, it doesn’t mean From Software is abandoning single-player games.

The existence of games like Sekiro, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and The Duskbloods shows that From Software is willing to experiment, as are other developers within the Soulslike space. And it’s perhaps for that reason that the future of the genre looks so bright. While certain core elements seem to always persist, the current pliable present bodes well for an even more flexible future.

“The Souls series led to the expansion into the open world of Elden Ring and the roguelike Nightreign, and seeing that popularity, I think From Software will continue to explore new horizons in various forms as a pioneer of the genre,” Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo Games’ Yasuda says.

For some, it’s just a matter of time before someone – whether it’s From Software or another developer in the space – finds the next heralded evolution of the genre. “There’s space for truly groundbreaking and exciting new ideas to come in and disrupt what we understand the rules of a genre to be,” CI Games’ Valjalo says. “I think that is key – which titles can experiment within the established bounds of the genre and end up transcending and transforming them so the possibility space is redefined? Those are the ones that will move the needle and keep us moving forward as an industry.”

That is one of the universal responses when I ask Soulslike developers about the future: excitement. “I believe that more game studios will continue to explore diverse approaches, and I think those approaches will lead this genre to evolve and expand even further,” Lies of P director Choi says. “We are already seeing this happening in the market as well. As a gamer who loves this genre, I hope to see the release of many diverse and enjoyable games to the point where defining the genre itself becomes unnecessary.”

Though the answer for why the Soulslike genre has experienced such success over the last decade and a half is a complicated one, it’s hard not to attribute it to the strong vision of Hidetaka Miyazaki. And following the success and incredible influence of Elden Ring, it’s difficult to guess where the Soulslike genre could go next.

But that’s the thing about visionaries: Whether you’re talking about trailblazers who helped create tech we use every day or acclaimed game developers who changed the very industry in which they work, they’re trailblazers because they give the audience what they want, often without the audience realizing they want it until they have it. Miyazaki recognized that and created the games he would have wanted to play if he were just a gamer.

When I ask Miyazaki what sets From Software’s games apart from other Soulslikes, even he struggles to pinpoint the reason. “Our own Soulslikes – which is odd to say – whether it’s Elden Ring or Dark Souls, if there is that special value add that we provide, what makes it different and sets it apart, I think at times, we aren’t necessarily sure of what that is or what the DNA is, so to speak,” he says in reflection. “I think of all the different ways I’d want to be killed as a gamer and as a player, and thinking about the difficulty curve and certain challenges that we place in front of other players is something that, as a gamer, I just hoped or wished would exist as an experience. I think that is a very strong differentiating factor.”

Even now, Miyazaki remains humble regarding his role in creating and proliferating this genre. “Over the last 15 years, we’ve kind of started building this genre and we’ve received a lot of critical acclaim from the fan audiences, but I really attribute it to good luck and good timing in when we happened to show up on the market,” he says. “So, it’s very, very humbling to hear people say, ‘Oh, it’s a Soulslike,’ or they give us credit for inventing a whole new genre, but I perhaps don’t necessarily see it that way.”

Whether or not he wants to take credit for the success of the Soulslike genre, for the millions of players who have enjoyed a game in the style, Hidetaka Miyazaki’s genius has shone through time and again. And for the thousands of developers who have worked on Soulslike games – both at From Software and outside of the studio – Miyazaki’s influence is as undeniable as the genre that made him one of the most iconic game developers of the 21st century.

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