Single Player Games Are Still Coming from Dark Souls, Elden Ring Dev

The fact that this is another from soft title forced to fit a multi-player framework makes it being a Nintendo exclusive far easier a pill to to swallow. That's coming from a die hard soulslike fan.

Zero interest in this or the insanely greedy nonsense with the switch 2.

I mean, most of their previous games all have some form of multiplayer in them. Elden Ring could strictly be classed as PvPvE as this game has been labelled...

I don't know FromSoft, your last two outings have no to appeal to me what so ever. I believe it when I don't see Multiplayer as one of the tags...

I'll be waiting patiently to emulate it on PC sometime in the future then.

@riccyb0y You can play Elden Ring completely solo. This game would appear to force you into a server with other people competing against each other. That appears to be a fundamental part of the game design.

Good, multiplayer has no place on my gaming world.

Hopefully sooner than later, multiplayer elements in most Souls games are optional. They improved on the solo experience with Elden Ring by implementing Spirit Summons. It meant players could have a kind of companion rather than relying on strangers to steamroll a boss. Or to just avoid being invaded.

I remember the first time I ran into another player in Demon's Souls. The whole thing was in Japanese, if it mentioned multiplayer I never saw it. Then one day another player invaded and almost gave me a heart attack, needless to say I got wrecked. Great memories. But probably not something a first timer wants to run into when they are out exploring the world. The more I look at Duskbloods the more cautious of a buy it's becoming. I never thought I'd pass on a Souls game, but I am with Nightreign.

I have to see to see more of Duskbloods before I commit to a buy and I hope those two games are the last of From's experiments with multiplayer heavy Souls content. I get that games have to evolve but personally live service/multiplayer feels like a step backwards when you are dealing with such a rich world/source material. Souls games are digital works of art, they are supposed to lonely tales of survival and player growth. It's hard to see how they could preserve all of that with those two games. And as I've said before it's the last franchise I ever thought would go that route but here we are with not one but two of them.

Please no more Fortnite inspired games from FromSoft.

now get back to more legacy dungeons with a little bit of open world and then we're talking

If duskbloods was single player game that would’ve been a system seller.

As it is it’s just a disappointment, for me anyway.

I wonder if one of them is the rumored new Sony exclusive game.

Sony and From signed to produce a new prototype back in 2022, if that became a full production game or if it got cancelled, I guess we'll need to wait more 3 or 4 years to know.

nintendo fans are bummed out finding this game will be a pvpve game..

Atleast we have Khazan and Lies Of P until they get back to single player options

Sony owns Bloodborne, so this is seems like not Bloodborne but with MP. Nintendo might have said "we want our own Bloodborne, but as a new IP." Who knows.

@liamcroft

Just a heads up that this sentence:

"Given the overwhelming success of Elden Ring, it was hardly ever in doubt that FromSoftware would abandon games focused on playing alone."

should read as follows for correct grammar/meaning:

"Given the overwhelming success of Elden Ring, it was hardly ever in doubt that FromSoftware would not abandon games focused on playing alone."

Can i expect more single player games that isn't Soulslike like Tenchu or Armored Core?

I really hope so because I have no interest in these purely multiplayer games. I love the multiplayer aspect in the base solo games although I rarely use it

@kmtrain83 A large amount of the commenters on websites like here have a complete disregard for anything multiplayer focused.

I was super bummed to find out Duskbloods is a multiplayer game, but having now read the interview with Miyazaki, it sounds interesting and does appeal to me more. Plus, I don’t subscribe to PS Plus, but do subscribe to NSO because it is so much cheaper, so there’s a good chance I’d actually play this. I trust in Miyazaki, and I’m willing to give Duskbloods a chance.

elden ring on switch 2 is a game key cart.. no physical data on cart..

I am confident that Bloodborne II or a spiritual successor funded by Sony is still happening. It's not copium

I was really hyped during the reveal and then lost all interest when I found out it was multiplayer

@Th3solution How do you feel about this? As I said before, I am almost at the end of Sekiro, and am feeling like, whilst that was to a large extent a nice departure from the traditional Souls formula, I don't know how much another Souls-style game would appeal to me after already completing four of them and Bloodborne, as someone who has completed multiple Souls games and Bloodborne, yourself, and intends on playing Elden Ring and DS3 (and Sekiro, I remember!),

Do you feel you might face a similar type of Soulsian fatigue after playing so many by the time the next one comes out? (if you have beaten ER and DS3, by then) as the games, generally speaking, have quite a lot of content in common with one another.

Having said that, I would gladly play a slightly more challenging (even though it is already very challenging on it's own) DLC of Sekiro, for a bit of an extra helping of that secret recipe. (If I still feel that way in two weeks, if I have/can beat the game by then).

It's just because I am starting to feel almost as if I have this Faustian contract with Miyazaki to play whatever masterpieces he produces for an indefinite period of time, no one should feel obligated to play a game just because it's a masterpiece, especially if you have completed six (or seven) previously released similar masterpieces by the same artist by that point.

What are your thoughts?

@Jimmer-jammer As I was saying to Sol, above, and, as someone, who, like the two of us, has also played and completed multiple Miyazaki Souls games, do you feel like you will have had enough by the time the next single-player Soulsian experience comes out? Or do you feel like you could keep playing them forever? Despite the experience probably sharing a lot of mechanics with the previous installments.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Fortunately, I haven’t felt any Souls-fatigue yet, but I’ve been really intentional to not play too many Souls or Soulslikes in quick succession. By spreading them out, I’ve felt renewed excitement with each game so far. The flipside of that approach is that I’m so far behind the other Souls fans, so I do have DS3, ER, and Sekiro still to go.

Given what this article says, I look forward to another (probably Elden Ring 2 I guess) single player focused game in the same spirit of their others. I might still be trying to catch up on their library by the time it comes out. I think I’ll likely play those last 3 entries within the next 2 years though, so perhaps I’ll be up to date when it comes.

I might consider trying these multiplayer projects they have, but the reviews have got to really convince me, because I don’t think the MP approach interests me.

But you have to give FromSoft due credit — they continually try to push the boundaries and evolve and innovate. They’re able to keep most of the core feel of their games intact, whilst they experiment with new settings and gameplay hooks. The 4 Souls games are quite similar but Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring really push new ideas and boundaries. And now Nightreign and Duskbloods feel like another attempt at redirection. Which is smart of them, as a company, because the Soulslike genre is currently filling in the gaps of copying what they were doing with their earlier games. It makes sense that they might want to avoid churning out another Dark Souls or Bloodborne when we have Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen, etc. that it would compete with.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I don’t think I’ll have had enough. I find the differences between their games (even within the Souls games proper) to be substantial enough both in their systems and thematically that I’m not even close to burning out on them. The wider Soulslike genre is a slightly different story but overall it remains one of my favourite genres. I know you’ve mused off and on about quitting while the getting’s still good. I respect that but I couldn’t commit to it myself.