Ranking the Modern FromSoftware Games – From Demon’s Souls to Armored Core VI

8. Dark Souls II

• Release Date — March 11, 2014
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 91% (Universal Acclaim)

Let’s go ahead and get one thing out of the way: Dark Souls II is a great game. While this sequel often gets unfavorably compared to the likes of both its predecessor and its follow-up, Dark Souls II is an incredibly important step toward solidifying the popularity of the “Soulslike” subgenre, and toward getting more players familiarized with the work of FromSoftware. One of the main digs against Dark Souls II is that its development was handled by a team new to the franchise (while Miyazaki and many of the other key members from the first Dark Souls were hard at work on Bloodborne), but it ended up resulting in a game that stands on its own within the trilogy.

Dark Souls II is weird but in a good way. The switch from an impressively interconnected world to a hub-and-spoke design model allowed the team to get inventive with some of the places players visit within Drangleic, even if the actual layouts of those spaces leave much to be desired. And when it comes to character progression and leveling, it’s almost impossible to not get quickly overpowered, which tends to trivialize many of the game’s encounters until…well, it doesn’t.

While it’s hard to argue against Dark Souls II being the easiest game in the franchise, it does have some of the all-time greatest boss encounters in the series that provide significant difficulty spikes (Sir Alonne or the Darklurker, anyone?), making the presence of abundant materials and its smoother power curve a blessing to complement its deep and rewarding buildcraft.

7. Demon’s Souls

• Release Date — October 6, 2009 (Original), November 11, 2020 (Remake)
• Platforms — PlayStation 3 (Original), PlayStation 5 (Remake)
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Original), 92% (Remake)

Even within a wholesale ranking of modern FromSoftware games, it’s uniquely tricky to try and place Demon’s Souls thanks to its twin versions. A lot of players may rank either the original version or the remake higher or lower based on a multitude of factors; mainly, their familiarity with and nostalgia for the original PS3 version, or the ways that the newer PS5 remake’s visuals and quality of life improvements somewhat upset the game’s balance and atmosphere.

Ultimately, Demon’s Souls (regardless of which version you’re thinking of) is an incredibly important stepping stone toward delivering a better, more cohesive RPG experience. Even though it would eventually be outdone by its spiritual successor, there’s no Dark Souls without Demon’s Souls, and that alone earns it an important boost in a ranking of FromSoftware titles whether you’re talking about the original or the remake. It’s not without its small frustrations, but Demon’s Souls is still a must-play for FromSoftware fans to better understand and appreciate the evolution of the studio’s games.

6. Armored Core VI

• Release Date — August 25, 2023
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
• Review Aggregate Score — 86% (Generally Favorable)

Following a long line of “Soulsborne” titles that built off the success and popularity of Dark Souls, FromSoftware would surprise fans by returning to the studio’s flagship franchise: Armored Core. Ahead of Armored Core VI‘s release, players had a lot of questions. Would it be a traditional Armored Core game? Would it be a Soulsborne title with mechs? Could players expect a high difficulty curve and skill ceiling? Well, no, no, and yes.

Interestingly, Armored Core VI is neither a traditional Armored Core game nor a modern FromSoftware Soulsborne game, but rather something in-between. While the game is still mission-based like previous Armored Core titles and players are encouraged to routinely switch up their loadouts to deal with the demands of each mission, Armored Core VI clearly embraces some surprising elements of FromSoftware’s Soulsborne games.

The most noticeable difference in Armored Core VI versus previous games in the series is its emphasis on speed and mobility, which transforms each encounter into a frantic back-and-forth with enemies as you learn their moves and figure out how to respond using your own arsenal. Combat is the name of the game in Armored Core VI, and the title’s ability to make both regular and boss battles feel thrilling throughout the entire experience helps it rank as one of the best modern FromSoftware games, even if it’s not a Soulsborne title.

5. Dark Souls III

• Release Date — April 12, 2016
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)

For many players, Dark Souls III stands as the best game in FromSoftware’s trilogy of action RPGs. Between its enhancements to combat (thanks to an improved sense of speed and momentum) and some of the best, most challenging boss encounters in the series to date, Dark Souls III is almost the pinnacle of the franchise, tying together lessons learned from the development of both Dark Souls II and Bloodborne to deliver a fitting finale to an epic three-game saga that ultimately helped put FromSoftware on the main stage of the gaming industry. But it’s also a love letter to the fans who helped them get there.

Following the many departures of Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III feels like both a homecoming and an attempt to rewrite history, delivering the true sequel that fans of the 2011 original always wanted, returning to the lands of Lordran and presenting us with a climactic finale with an incredible, emotional payoff. Dark Souls III also happens to be one of the best-looking games in FromSoftware’s catalog, especially where its art direction, level design, and boss arenas are concerned. A masterpiece in every sense of the term, Dark Souls III may be “more of a good thing” in terms of its place in FromSoftware’s catalog, but when that “good thing” is the timeless classic that is Dark Souls, that’s not necessarily a knock against it.

4. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

• Release Date — March 22, 2019
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

2019’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is what happens when you strip away all the RPG mechanics and progression out of FromSoftware’s Soulsborne games and peel the experience back to its most crucial fundamental: combat. At their core, FromSoftware games all revolve around their combat (after all, it’s why we all originally had to “git gud”), but few titles embrace the purity of that combat in the way that Sekiro does. Instead of giving players the option to grind or utilize broken builds that make each encounter easily exploitable, Sekiro challenges us to master the tools at our disposal, leveling the playing field so as to emphasize the purity of its swordplay and brilliant deflection system.

In practice, Sekiro almost plays out like a rhythm game, timing deflections and parries with enemy strikes, jumping or dodging unblockable attacks, and responding in kind with your own devastating counterattacks to whittle away at enemy posture before striking the fatal blow. By challenging the player to forget everything they know about the Souls games, Sekiro is a genius “flipping of the script” that forces adaptation, and it’s safe to say that no other game in the FromSoftware catalog is quite like it.

3. Dark Souls

• Release Date — October 4, 2011
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)

In each gaming generation there are a small handful of titles that come along and completely change the way game developers approach certain genres, and the 7th console generation was practically bursting with such experiences. What BioShock did for first-person shooters and immersive sims, Dark Souls did for action RPGs, practically rewriting the book regarding what the genre was capable of and landing FromSoftware in the mainstream spotlight. More than a decade later, it’s still readily apparent how brilliant Dark Souls is, from the interconnected world that folds in on itself in surprising ways to its intricate and methodical combat that favors a metered and cautious approach over rushing in without a plan.

Accordingly, Dark Souls still reigns supreme as the best game in the trilogy, not just for its innovations as the title that did it “first” (not counting Demon’s Souls) but as the title that also did it “best”, offering an immersive experience in a grimdark fantasy world that has been endlessly copied and iterated upon since its release.

Like every other game on this list, there are moments from Dark Souls that stick with the player forever, long after they’re first experienced or even after they’ve been experienced for the hundredth time, like stepping out into Anor Londo for the first time, taking on the Four Kings in the depths of the Abyss, or the final, melancholic encounter with Gwyn in the heart of the first flame. Just talking about it has me wanting to fire up another playthrough, and I’d be all too ready to visit Lordran again at a moment’s notice.

2. Bloodborne

• Release Date — March 24, 2015
• Platforms — PlayStation 4
• Review Aggregate Score — 92% (Universal Acclaim)

Outside the original Dark Souls, there’s a strong case for Bloodborne being FromSoftware’s masterpiece. As Sekiro would do a few years later, Bloodborne challenges just about every convention of Dark Souls. Dark Souls’ combat is slow and methodical, but Bloodborne encourages aggression and pressing encounters. Dark Souls abides by the Tolkien-inspired high fantasy tropes of the traditional role-playing game, but Bloodborne is an atmospheric gothic horror tale that slowly gives way to a Lovecraftian nightmare in the back half. And rather than give players defensive options like shields, Bloodborne slaps a gun in players’ off-hands and says “Shoot your enemies’ attacks away”.

Everything Bloodborne does or doesn’t do is a brilliant subversion of everything players expect after Dark Souls, and it’s part of what cements it as such an important title in FromSoftware’s legacy. But for all its differences, Bloodborne is still unmistakably the brainchild of Hidetaka Miyazaki. It’s also the closest we may ever get to a true 3D Castlevania in all but name, which has undoubtedly gone a long way toward cementing it as a favorite among many FromSoft fans. Despite desperate pleas for a remaster, PC port, sequel, or remake, Bloodborne remains a singular experience on the PlayStation 4, and that seems to only add to its mystique as the studio’s magnum opus.

1. Elden Ring

• Release Date — February 25, 2022
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
• Review Aggregate Score — 96% (Universal Acclaim)

Taking more than a decade of game design experience on the studio’s other games and condensing it into a singular, expansive open-world RPG was always going to be a challenge for FromSoftware and Hidetaka Miyazaki, but they were miraculously able to pull it off with Elden Ring. Just like Dark Souls had done with the traditional action RPG 11 years prior, Elden Ring practically rewrites the book for what players expect from an open-world adventure. The Lands Between is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and dense open-world sandboxes ever created, with the promise of adventure (and danger) lurking around every corner, under every rock, and within every seemingly peaceful hamlet.

But Elden Ring‘s impressive open world would all be for naught if the game didn’t also deliver on both its combat and narrative, which it does in spades. While there are some legitimate complaints against Elden Ring for some of its bosses’ balancing and how many of them are essentially a copy/paste of mechanics from other foes in the game, there’s not much negative that one could say about the game’s staggering depth of combat mechanics, customization, and buildcraft, allowing for each playthrough to feel different from the last (unless you just want to opt for something hilariously broken and fun). As an open-world game and as a AAA RPG, Elden Ring is a triumph and well-deserving of its stranglehold over 2022’s gaming zeitgeist as the clear Game of the Year winner.