FromSoftware has hardened their position as a AAA giant in the Dev world. A bit like Activision Blizzard, but with more respect from their consumers and less public trading. It won’t surprise me if we all come to find that FromSoft is the most profitable developer in the industry within the next decade.
That said, I won’t be buying any of their games on release. Yes, this has something to do with the Switch 2 paywall for their upcoming title “The Duskbloods” and, no, that isn’t the only reason why.
I Don’t Believe FromSoftware Can Produce Games With High Enough Quality Anymore
FromSoftware have been producing games with the consistency one would expect from a developer who lives on coffee (and a side of coke). In all of the last twenty years, there has only been two where FromSoftware didn’t release a game. So there consistency is nothing new. That said, they’ve really hit their stride in what sort of formula their games are following.
Dark Souls III followed I & II in a way that sacrificed immersion and world building for more streamlined boss-fight simulator elements . Sekiro and Bloodeborn, which were released in and around the DS trilogy’s arrivals, acted as experimentation pieces that absolutely blew the industry away, but hadn’t seen any followups to their releases, in neither spirit nor de jure release.
Elden Ring, following DS III, was a step further in that direction, with boss fights, looting, and sandbox environments that were focused on quantity over quality. Nightreign is going to be a Fortnite Elden Ring with the same environment strapped with a multiplayer framework on its face. And “The Duskbloods” will be released as a pseudo-followup to Bloodborne, in all likelihood, but as a Switch 2 exclusive that I will probably never cash into.
Are these ideas, releases, and paywalls bad for FromSoftware? Absolutely not. But I don’t have absolute faith in their ability to make these experiences up to the standard the DS trilogy had created for them.
If the experiences seem worth the money, I’ll continue to support my beloved FromSoftware, but they lost their right to my absolute trust with Elden Ring and, assuming my judgements are correct, Nightreign. And I hope, with all of my heart, that this article will make a fool of me for years to come as FromSoftware release banger after banger.
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