But it always eventually comes back with a new spin on ruined cathedrals and mad magicians. The studio would go on to take big departures from dark fantasy, creating horror games in the Echo Night series and branching out the furthest into mech warfare primarily via the Armored Core series. I look at a FromSoftware dragon and think: Jesus, what happened to their fucking life?!?! (I catch my image in the OBS stream monitor.) What happened to my life? I look at most dragons and think: OK, cool, badass. Take Dark Souls' Gaping Dragon, for instance. Hollow Knight's ability to make me care about cartoon bugs is the closest any game's gotten. They might feature a depressed knight and a backstabbing dragon, but FromSoft's interpretation of these motifs is sharper and more memorable than the rest by a mile. There's a reason that so few of the Souls-likes sprouting up in FromSoftware's wake don't stick with me.
But rather than a lack of imagination, I see a focused, disciplined imagination. It's always the same tragically immortal player, the same third person combat, the same broad themes and monsters. It's easy to glance at FromSoftware's last decade of games and call the studio a one trick pony. That repetition would only be a problem if the similarities weren't so intentional (or just so goddamn cool). Every new Souls game is a spiritual sequel to the last, a reinterpretation of FromSoftware's favorite doomy motifs and signature game design. I was also surprised as I processed that E3 trailer, but after watching it a few times I took a breather and remembered that this is what FromSoftware does. People have been quick to point out that Dark Souls and Elden Ring look and sound exactly like one another, at least at a glance.
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