The Soulsbourne Series is one of those rare series in gaming where the name alone draws immediate and daunting connotations to mind. Creative boss fights, interconnected levelling, and most of all, difficulty. The series has garnered such a reputation for its gruelling difficulty that it is easy to be put off and to overlook the other elements that make up these games and give their world their impressive level of texture and feeling. These are, at their core, games about exploration and discovery, games that deliver thrills based entirely on the triumphs of the people playing them. The difficulty comes part in parcel with that, but only to enhance the ecstatic feeling of triumph that emerges from beating that boss, progressing to that next area, or finding that shortcut that will save the arduous run from the last checkpoint.
FromSoftware Inc’s newest release, Elden Ring, perfectly encapsulates this appeal. A game based solely on the premise of exploration and choice, from almost the very offset you are free to ride off in whatever direction you choose and face whatever challenge is in that direction. And it will always be hard. One of the most significant changes Elden Ring brought to the Soulsbourne dungeon crawl formula was the ability to decide for yourself the direction of this gruelling game experience. Players could progress from the game’s starting location, Limgrave, to Stormveil Castle, the game’s first legacy dungeon, for a linear experience that rewarded players based on the level of challenge they faced, a challenge which matched player’s then early level game status. However, players could bypass Limgrave entirely, and instead progress to areas such as Liurnia of the Lakes or Weeping Peninsula. These areas offered far more of a challenging experience for players and rewarded players for that challenge.
The particular difficulty of The Soulsbourne Series is what makes these choices feel rewarding. Exploration has always been a key staple to The Soulsbourne Series, and Elden Ring just expanded it, bringing a total freedom to how exploration played out. But no one can forget the feeling of dread from creeping into the subterranean Blight Town in Dark Souls, or the dilapidated ruin of Old Yharnam in Bloodborne. These games had a far more linear format and yet still made exploration feel natural and rewarding. Exploration means the discovery of loot, an invisible passage, or a snippet of lore. One genius move made by FromSoftware in developing these titles, was the placement of incredibly important NPCs or a random, yet important piece of lore in ridiculously obscure locations. This fosters a desire within players to explore and discover. The use of difficulty simply means this exploration is all the more rewarding.
This interplay between rewarding exploration and difficulty is not something that is solely limited to Soulsbourne games of course. Most open world games come with a difficulty setting and the choice to ramp up the toughness if the going gets too easy. Games such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt allow for a difficulty mode akin to the difficulty in Soulsbourne games, in which even the lowest level enemy can kill you in three hits and defeating a pack of wolves can take ten minutes. But this only reveals another core appeal that is attached to the Soulsbourne games. Game series like The Witcher, Elder Scrolls or other fantasy RPGs allow you the choice as to which level of challenge you feel comfortable with. Soulsbourne games do not afford players that luxury.
In place of this comfort, you are faced with a challenge that you know is well beyond what you would consider your skill level, and at the start, it is. You are consistently surprised by how every enemy is seemingly killing you with ease. You spend hours grinding your way through the first level, tepidly turning every corner until finally you reach the boss at the end! And that only seems to add another layer of game-induced insecurity. But this I think is where the appeal begins for people. My first Soulsbourne game was Dark Souls III (technically Dark Souls II but we try to forget about that one), and I remember the process of making my way slowly through the first level in Lordran and coming up against Dark Souls III’s first main boss. And I lost. So many times. I put the game down for a while but kept coming back to it because by that point I had spent so long trying to beat that first level, I had to see what was hiding on the other side of the boss fight. And eventually, after over a hundred attempts, I beat it and progressed. And the feeling from that was immediately appealing.
These are games that are brutally uncompromising, but once you find yourself moving at their speed, slowly making your way through areas, and carefully considering the best method to take down the next boss, the feeling of victory that comes is almost unparalleled. At no point in playing video games like Skyrim did I get the feeling of satisfaction from defeating another bandit by bopping him with my sword, axe, or [insert weapon here]. Compared to the feeling of defeating the bandits in the Undead Burg in Dark Souls, enemies who can easily kill you if your timing is not right, these fights in Skyrim often feel hollow.
Possibly one of the biggest misconceptions about these games is that they are games of endurance. They’re not. They are games of adaptability. Players need to adapt to the different playstyle these games ask for, where many enemies cannot be rushed and where each scenario the player finds themselves in is one where constant awareness of one’s surroundings is key. If players adapt to this harsh playstyle, they find a world where exploration is not only rewarding but is personal. The struggle to make your way through a particularly punishing part of the map and the victory felt when that struggle is overcome feels personal, and the adrenaline this carries is possibly one of the greatest appeals of these games.
