Since the release of Demon's Souls in 2009. FromSoftware has come to be the defining studio for 'Soulslikes', games that emphasize open exploration and character-building amid strategic combat where gnarly difficulty spikes. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of many of From's releases in this vein, doesn’t necessarily agree the company deserves such credit.
He spoke about the etymology of the term to Game Informer, where he explained that, really, From just understood what some players were looking for. "I know we've been credited [with inventing the term 'Soulslike'], but in terms of the game design, this idea of having death and learning as part of the core game cycle is something that the gaming audience was perhaps ready for," he says. "But there just wasn't the perfect answer for that appetite just yet."
Originally working on Armored Core, Miyazaki requested to be moved onto the nascent Demon's Souls, then a project higher-ups at FromSoftware weren't especially sure about. He introduced ideas from King's Field, an earlier sword-and-sorcery action-RPG series From developed through-out the '90s, and merged them with persistent online play, and eventually, the core loop of dropping your 'souls' when you died, and returning to retrieve them afterward.
This became fundamental to the entire SoulsBorne lineage, encompassing Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and the assorted releases since, recurring across all Miyazaki's projects since. "What we discovered is it is okay to make games with death as part of its core gameplay loop, and our answer happened to land and resonate with various audiences," he explains.
"I don't necessarily think it's a new invention, per se," he adds, "it was more the FromSoftware DNA and our game design overlapped with what was perhaps missing from the market."
However you want to look at it, FromSoftware's games have only gotten bigger and bolder since, all connected by the frustration of losing tens of thousands of souls in an unexpected fight, then dying again on the mission back to a regular enemy you underestimate. It's not a Soulslike until you distill such frustration.
