Souls (series)

Setting

The games take place within a medieval fantasy setting, where the player fights against the likes of knights, dragons, and various monsters. The recurring theme of the games' settings is that of a once powerful and prosperous kingdom, which eventually fell into decrepitude after a series of unfortunate events. The players' goal varies between installments; the plot of Demon's Souls follows an attempt to halt the spread of a demon-infested fog that would eventually shroud the world, while the plot of Dark Souls involved prolonging an age of prosperity (The Age of Fire), Dark Souls II finding a cure for the ailment known as "hollowing" and Dark Souls III put an end to the undead curse and the cycle of the first flame.

Gameplay

The protagonist of each Souls game can have a varying gender, appearance, name, and starting class. Players can choose between classes, including knights, barbarians, thieves, and mages. Each class has its own profile that can be tailored by the player's experience and choices. The player gains Souls from gameplay battles which act as both experience points to level up and as currency to buy certain items. Souls gained are usually proportional to the difficulty of fighting certain enemies; the more difficult an enemy, the more Souls the player will gain.

One of the core mechanics of the series is that it uses death to teach players how to react in hostile environments, encouraging repetition, learning from past mistakes, and prior experience as a means of overcoming its difficulty. Upon death, players will lose all of their Souls and be teleported back to a checkpoint, known as Bonfire, where they last rested. Only one chance is given for the player to recover their lost Souls in the form of a bloodstain, which are placed at or around where they last died. If the player dies again before reaching their bloodstain, the Souls are permanently lost.

Online interaction in the Souls games is integrated into the single-player experience. Throughout levels, players can briefly see the actions of other players as ghosts in the same area that may show hidden passages or switches. When a player dies, a Bloodstain can be left in other players' game world that when activated can show a ghost playing out their final moments, indicating how that person died and potentially helping the player avoid the same fate in advance. Players can leave messages on the floor that can either help players warning of upcoming hazards, or harm players by leaving false hints. Players can also engage in player versus player combat and cooperative gameplay using invasion or summoning mechanics.

Demon's Souls

Released in 2009 for PlayStation 3, Demon's Souls is the first game in the Souls series. It has also been described as a spiritual successor to the King's Field series of games, while at the same time being described as a separate entity "guided by differing core game design concepts." It also drew inspiration from video games such as Ico, The Legend of Zelda, and the early Dragon Quest games, as well as manga such as Berserk, Saint Seiya and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Demon's Souls takes place in the fictional kingdom of Boletaria, which is being ravaged by a cursed fog that brings forth demons who feast on the souls of mortals. Unlike its successors, Demon's Souls uses a central hub system known as the "Nexus" where players can level up, repair equipment, or buy certain items, before venturing into one of the five connected worlds. The "World Tendency" feature is also exclusive to Demon's Souls, where the difficulty of exploring a world is dependent on how many bosses have been killed, and how the player dies. The gameplay involves a character-creation system and emphasizes gathering loot through combat with enemies in a non-linear series of varied locations. It has an online multiplayer system integrated into single-player, in which players can leave messages and warnings for other players' worlds, as well as joining other players to assist and/or kill them.

Dark Souls

Dark Souls is the second game in the Souls series; it is considered a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls. It was released in 2011 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In 2012, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, featuring the base game and the Artorias of the Abyss downloadable content. The game takes place in the fictional kingdom of Lordran. Players assume the role of a cursed human character who has been chosen to discover the fate of the Undead. The plot of Dark Souls is primarily told through descriptions of in-game items and dialogue with non-playable characters (NPCs). Players must piece together clues in order to understand the story, rather than told through more traditional means, such as through cutscenes. Dark Souls garnered recognition due to its grueling difficulty and unforgiving challenge.

Dark Souls II

Dark Souls II is the third installment in the Souls series. Unlike the previous two games, director Hidetaka Miyazaki did not reprise his role. It was released in 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. In 2015, an updated version featuring The Lost Crowns downloadable content was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, under the title Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin - with the latter two platforms receiving retail releases. The game takes place in the fictional kingdom of Drangleic, where the player must find a cure for the undead curse. Although set in the same universe as the previous game, there is no direct story connection to Dark Souls.

Dark Souls III

Dark Souls III was officially announced at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015, and was released in Japan on March 24, 2016, and worldwide on April 12, 2016, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The gameplay is faster paced than previous Souls installments, which was attributed in part to the gameplay of Bloodborne.

Future

In an interview promoting Dark Souls III, Miyazaki was asked how he felt about the current amount of Souls games. He responded by saying, "I don't think it'd be the right choice to continue indefinitely creating Souls and Bloodborne games. I'm considering Dark Souls 3 to be the big closure on the series. That's not just limited to me, but From Software and myself together want to aggressively make new things in the future... I believe that From Software has to create new things. There will be new types of games coming from us, and Dark Souls 3 is an important marker in the evolution of From Software."

In April 2016, it was reported that Miyazaki and FromSoftware had begun working on a new intellectual property (IP), and had no current plans to continue the Souls series with sequels or spin-offs. Miyazaki also acknowledged the demand for a Demon's Souls remaster, but stated that the project would most likely be handled through a different studio.

Related titles

The King's Field series debuted in the mid 1990s for the PlayStation with King's Field and its two sequels. After the original trilogy, a fourth game was released for the PlayStation 2, after which, the series had some spinoff titles. King's Field as a whole is considered a spiritual predecessor to the Souls series.

Another FromSoftware game, Bloodborne, was directed by Souls series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and released for the PlayStation 4 in March 2015. Although it is its own intellectual property and not an official Souls installment, it shares many of the same elements and concepts and thus is often associated in discussion of the series.

On February 28, 2016, Bandai Namco Entertainment partnered with American retailer GameStop to release Slashy Souls, a free-to-play mobile endless runner based on the series. The game is presented in a pixel art style, and shares the series' level of difficulty. The game was met with highly negative critical reception, with reviewers such as Chris Carter of Destructoid and Jim Sterling both giving the game a 1/10.

Other media

On January 19, 2016, Titan Comics announced that a comic book based on the series would be released later that year. The first issue debuted on April 6, 2016, to coincide with the international release of Dark Souls III on April 12. Also in April 2016, a Kickstarter campaign for an officially licensed board game based on the series was announced, titled Dark Souls – The Board Game. The campaign was funded within the first three minutes of its launch on April 19, 2016, and will be developed by Steamforged Games and release by April 2017. In February 2017, music from the series, composed by Motoi Sakuraba, will be performed by a live orchestra at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris.

Reception

The Souls series has been met with widespread critical acclaim. Demon's Souls won several awards, including "Best New IP" from GameTrailers, and overall Game of the Year from GameSpot.

Dark Souls originally did not have a port for Microsoft Windows, but upon seeing the fans' demand for it, Bandai Namco community manager Tony Shoupinou lauded their support, and a Windows port was released in 2012. Dark Souls is also considered by some critics to be one of the greatest games of all time, and has influenced the development of other games, including Destiny, Alienation, Lords of the Fallen, Salt and Sanctuary, Shovel Knight, Titan Souls, and Enter the Gungeon. The series inspired a social media app for iOS and Android called Soapstone, which uses a similar online messaging system used in the series adapted for the real world, using GPS to determine a user's location and bringing up a list of cryptic messages posted by other users in the area.

Dark Souls II also received critical acclaim, and is the highest rated game in the series on Metacritic. Before release, Dark Souls III was one of the most anticipated games of 2016, and also received critical acclaim upon release.

Sales

As of March 2015, Demon's Souls had sold over 1.7 million copies, while as of May 2016, the Dark Souls games had sold over 13 million copies. Dark Souls III broke sales records upon release, with the title having the most successful launch day in Bandai Namco's history, having strong first week sales. Dark Souls III also became Bandai Namco's fastest-selling video game ever, selling over three million copies worldwide a month after its international release.