The father of Elden Ring and Dark Souls on the “soulslike” genre: we didn’t invent it, the market was already ready

He finishes “soulslike” it is used to define a subgenre of video games that recall the structure, the high level of challenge and the philosophy of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. In practice this term can be said to be born thanks to FromSoftwarealthough Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn’t entirely agree with this reading.

In an interview with Game Informer, the game director explained that, rather than “inventing” and imposing a new subgenre on the market, the Japanese studio managed with its vision to intercept the precise needs of the public that other games had not satisfied.

FromSoftware’s design philosophy filled a gap in the market

“I know we’ve been credited with inventing the soulslike genre, but from a game design perspective the idea of ​​integrating death and learning into the gameplay loop was something the audience was probably already ready for” Miyazaki said of the etymology of the term. “There just wasn’t a perfect answer to that kind of need yet.”

Towards the end of the 2000s, Miyazaki, then working on the Armored Core series, asked to work on the project still at the beginning of Demon’s Souls, a game about which FromSoftware’s leaders had several doubts. He brought to the team many ideas developed with King’s Field, the fantasy action-RPG series developed by the studio in the 1990s, and combined them with new solutions related to online multiplayer. From this mix, the loop that would define the identity of Demon’s Souls and future FromSoftware titles took shape: losing one’s “souls” upon death and having to return to the place where one was defeated to recover them. Despite an initially lukewarm reception from the market, over time players rewarded the formula, with 2011’s Dark Souls which is still considered one of the most influential games of the modern industry.

“I don’t necessarily think this is a real new invention,” he added. “It’s more FromSoftware’s DNA and our approach to game design that overlapped something that was perhaps missing in the market.”