Today From Software is best known for birthing and leading the charge of the Soulsborne genre, a portmanteau named after its Bloodborne and Dark Souls series. But the longer history of the company reveals a more chequered past, a timeline populated by minor hits at best, alongside curious novelties, intriguing failures, and more than a few outright duds.
In some ways, From Software emerged out of nowhere in 2011 with the release of the original Dark Souls, the studio's first genuine smash hit. Suddenly, almost overnight, millions of PS3 and Xbox 360 owners around the world were playing a From Software game, likely for the very first time.
But to a more dedicated observer, the ‘overnight’ success of Dark Souls - a streak that continues to this day with the magnificent Elden Ring - was an arduous journey 25 years in the making. Was the success of Dark Souls the culmination of two and a half decades of honing their craft? Or was it a mere fluke… a case of the stars aligning and From Software accidentally being in the right place at the right time?
Join us as we rekindle the past… sit down to rest at the present… and summon the future of From Software…
Humble Beginnings
1986 was an auspicious year for video games, particularly in Japan. It saw the release of The Legend of Zelda, the original Metroid, and the first Castlevania, all for the Famicom or NES. All three games can lay claim to being huge influences on the Souls series.
1986 was also the year in which From Software was founded, on November 1, in Tokyo, Japan. Although we don't know the exact meaning behind the From Software name, it's possible that it was chosen to represent the company's original focus… productivity software. To be honest, it's hard to think of a name that better captures the bland, business-like and--dare we say?--soulless experience of accounting software and spreadsheets.
By the time the company had smartly transitioned into making games for the Sony PlayStation some eight years later, the name From Software had stuck.
The first game from From Software was King's Field, released within two weeks of the launch of the PlayStation 1 in Japan in December 1994. King's Field saw From Software embrace the PlayStation's strength as an early pioneer of 3D graphics, rendering its environments in real-time with a first-person perspective. Although primitive compared to the 3D engines powering PC games of the era, such as Doom and System Shock, King's Field's technology was unusual for a console game.
King's Field also stood out from the crowd of racing games, fighting games, and arcade ports that defined much of the PS1 launch lineup by borrowing gameplay ideas from Western role-playing games. In the 1980s, PC RPGs developed in America, like Ultima and Wizardry, had gained something of a cult status in Japan. And it was these games, rather than the more popular JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, that From Software looked towards when designing King's Field.
Combat was simplistic and awkward. Players could equip various melee weapons and launch ranged magic, both from a first-person perspective. Such actions exhausted a stamina meter in an effort to constrain players, forcing them to adopt a more considered, thoughtful approach--a foreign concept amid the more brute force-focused action games of the time, but an idea very familiar to players of the Souls series and From Software's other more recent output. Even then, with its very first game, From Software's esoteric design sensibilities were in evidence.
The world of King's Field was depicted in muted colors and told a tale of an ancient kingdom fallen to ruin, dragon gods, and a cycle of royal succession, motifs that now reoccur throughout From Software's games.
From Soft likes to have fun with these connections between its games. Throughout the King's Field series, which saw two full sequels on PS1 before King's Field 4 was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, the Moonlight Sword serves as the player's primary aid to triumphing over evil. Acquiring the sword is the quest; equipping it delivers a metaphorical light that lifts the darkness, as well as a very useful high damage output for the end-game fight itself.
The Moonlight Sword, also known as the Moonlight Greatsword, has subsequently appeared in every Souls game as a tribute to King's Field. "This sword, one of the rare dragon weapons, came from the tail of Seath the Scaleless, the pale white dragon who betrayed his own." reads the item description for the Moonlight Greatsword in Dark Souls. The sword is only acquired by cutting the tail of Seath during the boss fight in the Crystal Cave. Seath the Scaleless himself is also a tribute to King's Field, specifically a powerful white dragon who shares the name Seath.
However, rather than either of these examples providing irrefutable proof of some sort of consistent From Software Cinematic Universe, they are merely cheeky references between games. A little wink and nod to their fans.
While King's Field and its sequels got From Software off to a sound, if unspectacular, start… the studio would find greater success with its fourth game, and the first of what would become its most popular series until the arrival of Dark Souls.
In 1997, From Software released Armored Core for the PS1. An action game where you pilot a mech, drawing on designs from notable anime artists, Armored Core would be called a third-person shooter today.
It spawned two sequels on the original PlayStation before making the move to a new console generation with Armored Core 2 on the PS2. All told, From Software put out an incredible SEVEN Armored Core games and spin-offs on the PS2. In terms of quality, it was very much a case of diminishing returns, but at the same time, the Armored Core series demonstrated From Software's capacity to serve a hungry, if niche, audience and cemented its reputation as a developer who worked outside the mainstream, seemingly immune to prevailing industry trends.
While the consistent sales of Armored Core sustained the studio through the 2000s, it wasn't for want of trying to branch out. From Software threw a lot at the wall during the PS2 era--even making a few tentative forays into the Xbox and Gamecube market--but few of them proved commercially successful.
Early PS2 action-RPGs such as Evergrace and Eternal Ring were clunky and poorly received. Lost Kingdoms and its sequel was another middling action-RPG. A notable aspect of Lost Kingdoms, at least in retrospect, is the plot device of a deadly fog that has shrouded the land. Seven years later, Demon's Souls would begin in a similar fashion, its kingdom of Boletaria consumed by a deep fog.
On the Xbox, From's games took on a more action-heavy slant with the excellent Otogi: Myth of Demons, and its sequel, Immortal Warriors, both of which were stylish and exciting third-person action games. Murakamo: Renegade Mech Pursuit was a simplistic, anime-inspired mech shooter that had none of the grit or attention to detail of Armored Core. And Metal Wolf Chaos was a silly satire of American militarism in the guise of an endearing--but not very good--third-person mech shooter.
But by the end of the decade, From Software was in trouble. Attempts to attract a new audience on the Xbox 360 floundered as fantasy RPG Enchanted Arms and slow-paced mech sim Chromehounds failed to set the world alight. While Ninja Blade tried in vain to revive the over-the-top action of Otogi with the unwelcome addition of lengthy cut-scenes full of quick-time events. On the PlayStation 3, Armored Core 4 had at least modernized that series with slicker controls and online play, but it was still preaching to the choir.
However, in February 2009, From Software released Demon's Souls, and…look, for a while, nothing changed.
The Game That Changed Everything
Demon's Souls had been through development hell. Originally envisioned as a spiritual successor to King's Field, the ill-fated project was eventually helmed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, previously a designer on several Armored Core games and the director of Armored Core 4. Miyazaki has said that he knew the game had been internally branded as a failure- primarily citing an uncompelling prototype and that's why he wanted to work on it. "I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted," he told The Guardian newspaper in 2015. "Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care – it was already a failure."