WithElden Ring, FromSoftware is at the pinnacle of its craft. While it’s always been successful with itsSoulsgames,Elden Ringis accessible in a way its predecessors never were and has garnered a massive fan base because of that. Still, since the average player will finishElden Ringin around 80 to 100 hours—given a fairly straightforward route through the game—they made be looking back to the rest of FromSoftware’s catalog to satisfy that newly-foundSoulsitch.
While FromSoftware boasts a fairly extensive list of titles, fans ofElden Ringshould look no further than theirSoulsseries. This means that they have a roster of approximately 6 games to comb through—not counting remakes—with the most recent original release beforeElden RingbeingSekiro. To fully cover their bases, fans may also want to look attheKing’s Fieldseriesto educate themselves on the history of FromSoftware and theSoulsgenre.
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The Argument For A Release Date Order Playthrough of FromSoftware’s Games
The simplest and perhaps the best way to go about playing through FromSoftware’s catalog is by order of when each game was released. To be clear, it’s acceptable to play theDemon’s Soulsremakein place of the original title, while playing through chronological order, just for ease of access alone. This means that the order should be:Demon’s Souls,Dark Souls,Dark Souls 2,Bloodborne,Dark Souls 3, and thenSekiro, which would bring the player up to the release ofElden Ring. As mentioned before, for the purists in the audience, it may be important to start with theKing’s Fieldseries as well as seek out the original version ofDemon’s Souls.
The most beautiful aspect of the release date order play-through is that it fully illustrates the evolution of FromSoftware. A player grinding through every game starting fromDemon’s Soulswill see the tweaks and changes made in each subsequent game, finallyculminating inElden Ring. The main drawback to this order is that having been spoiled byElden Ring, which is arguably FromSoftware’s greatest achievement, players may find it difficult to go back and truly appreciate the older games.
The Argument For An Ascending Difficulty Playthrough
Since theSoulsgames are almost entirely separate entities with very little shared between each game, it weakens the argument for using chronological order. Instead, the best way to tackle FromSoftware’s catalog might be by difficulty, starting with the easiest and ending with the hardest game. While it can be difficult to determine the difficulty of each game, aSoulsgame difficulty tier listcan be of great use. It’s important to keep one fact in mind, though, while digesting opinions on which game is the most difficult; the hardest game is often the firstSoulsgame a player experiences. AsSoulsgames generally have a steep learning curve compared to other genres, players may consider their first title to be the hardest, regardless of where it would rank if the entire community was polled or some objective measure was used.
It’s fairly clear that arguments about the difficulty rankings of theSoulsgames and their offshoots are going to be hotly contested. Instead, an imperfect solution is that players should focus on playing through in order of boss fight difficulty. While fans squabble about overall difficulty, there is some semblance of consensus around boss fights. It is generally agreed that encounters like the Orphan of Kos and Ludwig fromBloodborne: The Old Huntersare the most difficult, with boss fights fromSekirocoming in just after those. Finally, in terms ofboss fights in the Dark Souls trilogy,Dark Souls 3tends to reign supreme.
Here’s an order that should more or less take players from the easiest encounters to the hardest:Demon’s Souls,Dark Souls 2,Dark Souls,Dark Souls 3,Sekiro,Bloodborne—with the caveat thatBloodbornemust includeThe Old HuntersDLC.
Elden Ringis available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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