What do you like about the Soulsborne games?

[Asura]

With Elden Ring being out this week, this is something I've wanted to ask for a while.

I liked Demons'ss's'ss'ss Souls, back on PS3. Played a bit of Dark and Bloodborne, but haven't gone near Sekiro or the Dark sequels. However, I haven't finished any of them (important I guess for this discussion), even though I can see they're well-made, inasmuch as what I think they're trying to be, which tends to be a sign of good design.

But I wanted to ask; if you like the games, what do you like about them? What keeps you coming back, even though they clearly are quite difficult? Is it the challenge? Or something else?

[Brad]

The challenge is part of it. It's a challenge that doesn't require lightning reflexes or incredible feats of memorisation. The rewards for beating a tough enemy, the levelling up, the reward for exploration and experimentation and the other gamers' experiences bleeding into your world. The worlds feel real too.

[Neon Ignition]

The atmosphere and the sense of world building in the locations. Being that I don't find the enemies provide satisfaction, beating one feels no more satisfying to me than overcoming any tough spot in any other game, all frustration and no pay off. I think the parts that appeal, appeal to enough of a degree that each new game springs forth some hope that it will be the one where I can just enjoy it. Still waiting.

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, these are definitely engrossing games.
Maybe you're exploring the ruins of a castle, seeing the remnants of resistance against evil.
It could be the murky depths of the sewers, the roof of a cathedral, the sunset-bathed battlements or spooky graveyard, they're all brilliantly atmospheric.

I will add the caveat that I think these games are too hard for me to be fun and I cheated to make them so.
I did the trader dupeglitch in Demon's'ss' and I did the gambol dupeglitch to victory on DS1.
I restarted a gajillion times on DS1 until I booted the Black Knight off a cliff and it gave me his halberd and I carried it through the entire game.

I really don't care that I had to manipulate the game to have fun, I just care that I had fun.

[Brad]

Yeah, these are definitely engrossing games.
Maybe you're exploring the ruins of a castle, seeing the remnants of resistance against evil.
It could be the murky depths of the sewers, the roof of a cathedral, the sunset-bathed battlements or spooky graveyard, they're all brilliantly atmospheric.

I will add the caveat that I think these games are too hard for me to be fun and I cheated to make them so.
I did the trader dupeglitch in Demon's'ss' and I did the gambol dupeglitch to victory on DS1.
I restarted a gajillion times on DS1 until I booted the Black Knight off a cliff and it gave me his halberd and I carried it through the entire game.

I really don't care that I had to manipulate the game to have fun, I just care that I had fun.

That's how I play all Bethesday games. I know I can make things glitch so I just use the broken engine to overcome everything and I'm fine with that.

[fuse]

There's a lot of different things to like about them, and I think the different games that get grouped together under this heading execute on each of them to varying degrees of success.

At the top of my list is world building, and that's as an all-encompassing label that captures environment and enemy design, the stories, characters and dialogue, and yes, the challenge. It does genuinely feel like these are hostile lands that you're traversing, that are often packed with brilliant, subtle detail. Being trained to expect sudden and swift danger does make you more attentive and engrosses you in them totally. I play plenty of games where I will have a great time but nothing of the worlds really stay with me, whereas I feel like standout locations in these games have endured in my mind and will continue to do so. There was a bit in Dark Souls 3 (this one) where the discovery of a particular location genuinely got more of an awestruck reaction out of me than a lot of huge "and he was the killer all along"-type plot twists. The biggest improvement between Demon's Souls and Dark Souls for me is the change from 5 "worlds" to one big, neatly interconnected world, and I love all of the amazing moments in the games that followed where you can often see these huge locations off in the distance that you slowly start slogging your way towards.

Also, the boss fights. Sure every game's got some naff ones, but when they're good? ****ing hell they're good. Not always for the same reasons either - some do great storytelling, some have great, challenging mechanics and feel amazing to win, some are "epic"... I hate 99% of usage of that term but it is apt here.

[chopemon]

For me it's a lot of things but it mostly comes down to a sense of discovery and a sense that the designers place some trust in me as a player. My favourite is Dark Souls 1because of the interlocking level design. Most of it is extremely clever, or at least more extremely clever than most of the dreadful level design you get in AAA games nowadays. Every big game now has just piss poor level design and directing and they don't trust the player to navigate through a world. They are an endless parade of waypoints, someone on the radio barking at you what to do and a quest list of trivial rubbish.

Dark Souls almost never lies to you in the way other games do. The Last of Us is supposed to be a game about minimal resources, scouring for ammo, making every bullet count. Except when there's a set piece where Joel gets yanked upside down in an unavoidable trap. Because they want to do that set piece but know the player will run out of ammo while zombies run at them, Ellie suddenly becomes an infinite ammo supplier, constantly throwing you new bullets. So the game breaks it's own rules to let a trite little set piece happen. Later on, you're in some sniper alley and have to work your way to a house to kill the sniper. Joel has this weird Batman vision where he can see enemies through walls using his ears. Except for this sniper enemy. This is a special case enemy that doesn't show up in Joel's Batman ear vision because when you walk into his room, they want to surprise you with another pissant scripted set piece where you get grabbed.

Dark Souls doesn't really do this (I would argue that the Seathe bonfire teleport maybe does this a bit and the variable fall damage in Bloodborne definitely does it). It treats the mechanics as sacred. If you don't treat mechanics as sacred, the player cannot properly invest in them. People will tell you that they're invested in the Last of Us but what they're actually invested in is the feeling of thinking they are playing Something Important.

Dark Souls is all about game design and using that design to communicate an inscrutable story and to reward you for every discovery. It is not a content tourism game like every other AAA game; it is a game about slowly picking your way through a world that doesn't care about you and making discoveries that are important.

Unfortunately the marketing and larger community are insufferable and focus on the difficulty. They are hard games but that difficulty serves a purpose. Nothing in a modern AAA game feels important or hard won. They're completely uninteresting and are so expensive to make that their design is based around no gamer left behind and microtransactions. Souls games vary in difficulty and there is one for everyone but they all require more commitment that the standard AAA game. Some people are into that, some people are not. That's fine. I'm not a git gud type of insufferable idiot, I just like having to commit to something and having that commitment being rewarded with wonderful discoveries and knowing that I can rely on the designers not to break the rules for a trite set piece.

[wakka]

'Content tourism' - brilliant expression.

EDIT:

To add my own thoughts -

What I like about Dark Souls is that it makes me an active participant. A recent title which is absolutely guilty of an excessively frictionless, 'content tourism' oriented design is Ratchet and Clank for PS5 (I've had some defensive reactions on here from people when I've bagged on it before, but I'm going to do it again anyway because for me it's a poster child for this stuff).

The gameplay and level design are very simple and linear, the checkpointing is extremely frequent, and the game ultimately is designed for you to succeed. I'm not a games developer but it seems to me that the objective of the developer of this type of game is to keep you playing - to prevent you from becoming frustrated, to continually reward, to give you new distractions.

The end result of that for me is that I'm not a participant but, as chopemon says, a tourist. I've got about the same input into the experience as I do on a theme park ride. My attention drifts as I play, and by the time I refocus I've been playing mindlessly for half an hour without even really knowing what I'm doing. Shoot that, jump on this, press X, spend XP here, etc.

I don't really need or want that from videogames. If I want to be an observer that experience is better delivered by a film.

I've said before that I don't think the Dark Souls games are that hard. They just require you to apply more focus, and actually think about how you're going to approach something. That makes me feel like a participant, not just an observer (or a tourist). And that's why I like Dark Souls.

[QualityChimp]

There is some peculiar gatekeeping with the Souls games where some players are like:
"This is the best series ever. You MUST play it." and "You are not good enough to play it."

I don't see the problem in saying it's a difficult game and it might not be for everyone, but if you can adjust to it, you might like it.

Not every game is for everyone and we shouldn't admonish people for getting enjoyment in different gaming experiences.
Like saying every dish at the curry house must be mild so that everyone can eat it or insisting only the hottest curries are the only dish possible.

Not aiming this at you lot, just those other guys over there.

I also need to add they've built in a mechanism to grief other players that I hate.
I was happily playing Dark Souls and some douche came into my game and killed me a couple of times. Why?
In the end I hid behind the Giant Blacksmith and he kept running past unable to find me.
Funny that he got frustrated and bored and left, but annoying that he wasted my time.

[Golgo]

For me: the atmosphere and world-building, the wildly imaginative creatures and bosses, and the way they make you feel absolutely alone (even while reading comments from other players like "Rear Ahead...Try Finger.") The difficulty/challenge is not such a big deal or contributing factor for me. Sure they're difficult but you're meant to die - that mostly the whole point - so when you ease into accepting that they're quite chill experiences.

[Neon Ignition]

That's one of the things I can't attune to, dying. It's not the actr of losing and trying again like in every other game, it's the repeated tedious repetition of doing the same section again and again just to eventually win then have the same issue at the next wall. It never feels like part of the experience, it's literally the same in any difficult section of any game ever made. It becomes pure patience, not fun. Hopefully the PS5 remake of Demon's comes to PC. I'll be entertaining Elden Ring as soon as I can mod the PC version to play my fun way

[Asura]

I also need to add they've built in a mechanism to grief other players that I hate.
I was happily playing Dark Souls and some douche came into my game and killed me a couple of times. Why?
In the end I hid behind the Giant Blacksmith and he kept running past unable to find me.

I got a ton of XP, or souls, or whatever it was you get - in one of the games as a total beginner due to this. Some high level guy invaded and tried to kill me, but we were on a viaduct and I just kicked him off the edge. He must've been livid

[thinkitty]

I love everything about them and I do mean everything. The games tread as close to perfection as possible in my opinion. The imagination and art direction displayed in the world and creatures, the immersive atmosphere, the deep, broad lore, how the games drop you in these peculiar, hostile and intensely challenging worlds and leave it up to you to discover the tools and tactics to proceed. The freedom the games afford in character creation - both mechanically and aesthetically. I adore the mysterious NPCs who thanks to first class voice talent are all full to the brim with character and always fascinating to interact with; and of course the spectacular boss battles.

The challenge is a big attraction too, I find much more satisfaction achieving something when I had to work for it, when it involved picking yourself up time and again, learning from your mistakes. Having only one opportunity to retrieve your lost souls is such a fantastic mechanic as it ensures repeated mistakes have consequences. I could go on forever but ultimately they have all the ingredients I enjoy in a game and remind me of the fantasy novels I loved so much as a child. Oh and how could I forget the music, I'm a huge classical fan and the music in these games is sublime. Stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV2uFgIrklk

[dataDave]

They're the closest we get to modern-day Castlevania. I don't play them that often, though. I got the Platinum on Bloodborne because I'd loaned the console from a friend after buying the game at launch myself, so I was kind of forced into doing so.

I went back to Dark Souls II and got bored of it. The same happened with Sekiro, and Elden Ring. The bosses just do the same lame attacks no matter what game it is, and the solutions to them are always the same.

[wakka]

Quite a few people have mentioned storytelling and lore and I'd like to touch on that too. So many games have verbal diarrhoea. The audio diary is the single worst idea in the history of videogames storytelling and yet it's so pervasive. I assume this is because it's quite difficult to integrate storytelling with gameplay, so it's easier to design a bunch of levels around, e.g. shooting monsters and upgrading guns, and then fire, confetti-like, audio diaries all over it. But the result is something which feels separate and disconnected from the action at hand (and is frequently totally boring to be honest).

Dark Souls gets around this by doing two things:

1) Being totally obscure about what's going on, which works for it very well because it perfectly reinforces the gameplay action at hand - the loneliness, the sense of the unknown, the danger round every corner. It's all uplifted by the oblique narrative

2) Integrating lore directly into gameplay content. This is an RPG and therefore you will obviously read the descriptions of the items to find out what they do. That's part of the action at hand. Therefore putting your lore into them means that players will see it, without being bothered with it as a chore, like a dull audio diary they have to listen to like a podcast while they deal with the entirely separate and disconnected gameplay (e.g. shooting monsters). And, more importantly, that lore is integrated directly into the gameplay. It's an item they will then be using at some point, and you've used it as a tool to tell them a little bit of story

It's genius, to be honest. It's the rare game that has practically no ludo-narrative dissonance.