It's hard to overstate how influential Demon's Souls has been since its first release 15 years ago. FromSoftware's PS3 exclusive began life as a niche classic in Japan, but slowly gained a cult following through word of mouth, while growing imports eventually convinced Sony to come up with an official localization. And the rest is history.
Demon's Souls came out at an ideal time when modern video games were settling into a predictable rhythm of annual blockbuster shooters and action-adventures that rarely attempted to challenge players for fear of turning them away. Mainstream pop culture's embrace of the medium came at the cost of difficulty and discovery, and FromSoftware countered with a love letter to the era, forging its own path forward. Demon's Souls was not expected to be a success, and this apathy on behalf of its creators helped cement its legacy.
Why was Demon's Souls such an influential game?
Director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who has become an industry titan on par with Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto in the years since Demon's Souls, has set out to create a dark and unforgiving fantasy adventure. Instead of holding the player's hand, he rips it off, kicks us in the face, and sends us crawling across the room to retrieve our freshly thrown limb.
This philosophy is clear in the first moments. You create a character and wake up in a strange medieval castle without knowing how to attack, defend or even move. Instead, you're encouraged to use your instincts as you slowly but surely learn the controls and ways to survive in a world that can swallow you whole at any time. Animations require timely accuracy when attacking and dodging. Every small action you take can save your life or condemn you to oblivion.
I found myself hitting the infamous wall with Demon's Souls, finding it too difficult and too esoteric to appreciate until I finally broke through. I never looked back after that.
You are destined to die. Again and again, as you learn the dangers the Boletaria land holds in its hands. The idea of losing everything you'd worked for upon death and only having one shot at reclaiming your hard-earned loot was unfathomable at the time, and for many players it was a stumbling block that cemented Demon's Souls as a game that wasn't for them. , and never will be. But that was only because we weren't ready to challenge ourselves or accept the design intent of a game that wanted us to discover its world and master its mechanics by pushing ourselves to the limit.
Demon's Souls was so groundbreaking that it spawned not only Dark Souls and its sequels, but clever extensions to the formula with the classics Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring, the latter being one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed games ever. It took a long time for FromSoftware to convince the masses of its magic, but it was worth it. There's so much juice in the fruit of Demon's Souls that Miyazaki still uses it to this day, and I can't wait to see what the director does next.
And why did so many people try to imitate demon souls?
The arrival of Demon's Souls and its eventual mainstream success was a wake-up call for the industry. A reminder that the challenge was something the audience was willing to accept, and how the relentless array of game mechanics and world design could be used as effective storytelling tools.
Demon's Souls and games like it are so immersive because you've come to learn their gameplay and level design so intimately. Because you keep dying and trying to come out victorious again and again. Combine that with esoteric storytelling and enemy designs that feed into the lore and your exact role in each game, and it only gets better.
For Sony to ignore the success of Demon's Souls and let the rights to future titles go to Bandai Namco is an embarrassment that few in modern video games can match.
Kratos and the World Serpent, God of War (2018)
Games like The Surge, Mortal Shell, Dead Cells, Ashen, Lies of P, Hollow Knight and many, many more are either copies of the FromSoftware formula or at least use it as their foundations. It's fascinating to look back over the decade and change since its release and try to figure out exactly how different the landscape would have been had Hidetaka Miyazaki not been given the chance. What would triple-A, indie, and our attitude towards playing and appreciating difficult games and the worlds they take place in look like if things were even just a little bit different?
It's also interesting to see blockbusters like God of War and Assassin's Creed, which are unique in their own right, but obviously influenced by the combat and exploration of titles like Demon's Souls. You're learning from the best, and FromSoftware has created a new foundation of innovation for studios to draw from that's still going strong. Its formula is the perfect vehicle for creating new worlds while giving us different ways to explore and appreciate them.
When the Bluepoint 2020 remake arrived, it was a reminder of just how timeless Demon's Souls really is. While Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring have repeated its formula over the years, its core loop of exploration, combat, and curiosity remains elusive. As it celebrates its 15th anniversary, it's hard to ignore how special this game really is.
Dark Souls is Bluepoint Games' top-notch remake of FromSoftware's classic, which was released exclusively on PlayStation 5 in 2020. It improves on the original and sets the tone for many Soulslike games that would become massively popular.
