Summary
- FromSoftware games feature key recurring elements like peaceful home bases and cursed immortality.
- Endings are morally ambiguous, emphasizing complex emotions of melancholy and new reality.
- Corrupt monarchs and inescapable cycles are woven into the game narratives.
Fans of FromSoftware games know that, as unique as the developer's titles are, they're continually reiterating delightful but similar ideas. It's part of what makes their games stand out from the crowd, and it would feel weird for any future FromSoftware game not to include these delightful idiosyncrasies.
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Whether it's the beloved "level-up lady" or the contrast between melancholy and madness, FromSoftware aren't afraid to pick up their tropes and run with them. This list is ranked solely by the degree to which each trope is beloved and essential to the FromSoftware experience.
The Peaceful Home Base
A Moment's Respite
- Firelink Shrine, Roundtable Hold, and The Master's Workshop from Sekiro.
FromSoftware worlds are almost always apocalyptic, or on the verge of total collapse, and that makes for some pretty grim atmospheres. However, in every single FromSoftware game, the player has a peaceful place of safety to return to whenever they want to take a breather from their grim realities.
These locations typically feature unique music, interesting characters who advance storylines, and crucial vendors to encourage continued improvement. These are the places that feel like home, and they often become some of the most iconic locations in each game. It's hard to imagine Dark Souls without Firelink Shrine, and it's part of the connective tissue that ties the franchise together.
No "Good" Ending
Moral Ambiguity
- Multiple endings per game, few of them straightforwardly good.
Traditional RPGs usually have a straightforward good ending. Something that, when the player achieves it, they can unambiguously say that they've done the right thing. FromSoftware games rarely offer a similar form of comfort, regardless of how difficult each ending may be to achieve.
Instead, despite having multiple endings for each game, all FromSoftware endings have some degree of melancholy or strangeness to them. They're very rarely good or bad, but some complicated mix that reflects on an unwillingness to move on, or taking a step into a scary new reality.
The Dying Stagnant World
Putrification
- Players rarely find somewhere nice to visit.
Newcomers to FromSoftware games might be surprised to learn that, despite the intense lore of each game, the worlds themselves are usually barren, dead, and on the verge of total collapse, with no functioning civilizations left alive.
This is a significant aspect of FromSoftware's thematic language. Almost all of their games are about accepting that an old world is dead and a new version of reality needs to be brought about, even if it means more death and destruction. The worlds are miserable, but they usually have a potent beauty in their desolation, so it's no surprise that many fans want to return to them.
The Friendly Doomed Blacksmith
A Rare Friendly Face
- Hewg, The Giant Blacksmith, and Blacksmith Andre are prime examples.
FromSoftware games have a justifiable reputation of being brutally difficult, but players know that the reality is quite different. In fact, especially in Dark Souls and Elden Ring, players are usually given a massive host of options to improve their gear to make every fight as easy as possible.
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The friendly blacksmith character is key to this process. Though they change in each game, this guy will upgrade the player's weapons with a word of safe wisdom, and are sometimes the most tragic characters in their respective games. They're a rare ray of sunshine in a grim world, and they've become beloved among the fans.
Inescapable Cycles
Cosmological Doom Spiral
- All worlds are designed to spiral inwards.
It has long been said that FromSoftware games seamlessly blend Western fantasy visuals with Buddhist and Shinto philosophy better than anyone else. These games are all about letting go of power and bonds to the material plane, and trying to ascend to something better.
Usually, the world has begun to destroy itself because people refuse to die. Undeath is a blight that distorts these worlds beyond repair, and in Dark Souls 3, the truly apocalyptic results of this metaphysical disaster are brought to bear in a world where time and space have completely collapsed. The only way to escape cycles of rebirth and collapse is to embrace a future that's radically different from what came before, and that means taking out a mean final boss.
The Corrupt Monarch
Heavy Lies The Head
- Corrupt monarchs are featured in every Dark Souls games and Elden Ring.
In FromSoftware games, players are very rarely going to be fighting a lowly warrior by the game's end. Instead, the monarchs of each of their kingdoms are often portrayed as corrupt, evil, or at the very least, deeply flawed individuals who struggle against their metaphysical reality.
Whether it's Gwyn forever guarding the Age of Fire, the hollow Vendrick who was humbled by his own ambition, or the God-Queen Marika, whose sins are too numerous to mention, it's fair to say that FromSoftware is pretty skeptical of royal moral authority.
Undeath
Cursed Immortality
- Most characters in the Dark Souls games are undead, and it's a big part of Sekiro as well.
It's truly remarkable that in almost every FromSoftware game, the problem of undeath returns time and time again. The Dark Souls games are all about the Undead Curse, undeath plays a crucial role in Sekiro, and the line between death and dreams is explored thoroughly in Bloodborne.
Far from being a good thing, FromSoftware games insist that living forever is one of the worst aspirations humans can strive for. Instead, undeath inevitably leads to destruction, stagnancy, and corruption. How to die, and die well, permeates everything in a FromSoftware game, which sounds grim, but it's strangely life-affirming in games that are all about conquering difficult challenges and insurmountable odds.
The Level-Up Lady
A Nurturing Touch
- Melina, Shanalotte, Lady Emma (sort of), The Fire Keeper, The Doll, and more.
In FromSoftware games, there are very few areas that could be described as comfortable or reassuring. Most characters are plain weird or harbor evil designs on the player. That is, except the Level-Up Lady. This woman, often evoking mystical magic, is typically the source of the player's power and is how they grow stronger throughout the game.
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These women have been in Soulslike games ever since Demon's Souls, and although their primacy in each game's narrative changes, they're always some of the most beloved characters in their respective games. It's genuinely difficult to imagine a modern FromSoftware Soulslike game without a level-up lady.
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