Dark Souls Games In Order

The original Dark Souls took the gaming world by storm in 2011, distinguishing itself by stepping away from the established norms, clichés and tropes commonly seen in modern-day AAA games.

Its fame is owed in no small part to its much-lauded difficulty, which also tends to be grossly exaggerated.

However, Dark Souls was not the first “Souls” game ever released, and even though Dark Souls IV is unlikely to happen, the franchise’s legacy has left a deep and lasting footprint, generating an entire sub-genre of “Souls-like” games.

In this article, we will be listing all of the games that compose the Dark Souls series, as well as other Souls-like FromSoftware games, providing a short overview of each one.

The Souls Series

First, we have the “Souls” series. It laid the foundation for the “Souls-like” subgenre, which it would subsequently spawn.

The original Dark Souls series consists of three entries. However, it’s easy to bundle their precursor, Demon’s Souls (and its remake), together with them due to how similar the gameplay mechanics and the approach to storytelling are.

1. Demon’s Souls
2. Dark Souls
3. Dark Souls II
4. Dark Souls III
5. Demon’s Souls (2020)

Demon’s Souls is an often overlooked PlayStation 3 exclusive game. It was the precursor to Dark Souls, and it laid the groundwork for all the “Souls-like” games to come.

The key elements were the heavy focus on stamina management during combat, respawning enemies and the possibility of losing valuable XP (souls) upon death.

Above all else, it had that particular style of storytelling and an overbearing atmosphere that we have come to associate with the Souls games today. All of this made Demon’s Souls a highly unique and challenging game that was truly ahead of its time.

However, this experimental approach was both the game’s biggest strength and its greatest weakness. The combat feels unpolished and we don’t mean just that the hitboxes and animations didn’t age well, but also that there is an overall lack of balance between different classes/playstyles.

Also, while the game has some interesting bosses, there are just as many uninteresting ones that don’t come anywhere near what can be found in the later installments.

Many regard Demon’s Souls as an underrated, visionary masterpiece that would spawn numerous great games during the coming years. And true enough, while the game never received much popularity outside its niche and feels quite clunky and unrefined, its significance cannot be overstated.

Yet when viewed independently of the series that it led up to, we mainly appreciate Demon’s Souls for its rich world, beautiful environments and truly haunting atmosphere.

Now, let’s get to the Holy Grail of modern gaming that so many swear by today. By building upon the foundation set by its predecessor, Dark Souls managed to redefine the contemporary action RPG and attain cult status only years after its release.

So, what is it that made Dark Souls great? For one, there was the difficulty for which it is primarily known.

Where so many games today hand the player everything on a platter and go out of their way to ensure that they are not inconvenienced in any way, Dark Souls made the player work to earn their victory, which made the game ever so satisfying to play. It was challenging but — mostly — fair, and seldom did the challenges require more than patience and some thought to overcome.

However, the genius of Dark Souls does not lie merely in difficulty itself, but in how well it ties into the overall theme and plot, as well as how it penetrates nearly every layer of the game.

The mythological story is delivered through short pieces of cryptic dialogue and item descriptions that are easy to overlook. However, should the player put in some effort, all the pieces fall into place to tell the story of the dark, dilapidated land of Lordran.

Of course, the game is not without its fair share of flaws. Even though Demon’s Souls did come two years before it, and even though Dark Souls did a lot to improve upon it, the combat remained somewhat clunky and unrefined.

On top of that, there were many bugs, performance issues plagued the original console releases and the PC port that followed a year later was borderline unplayable without the use of mods.

Dark Souls II is widely regarded as the weakest link in the franchise, with very little to offer when compared to both games that came before and the games that came after. The reason for this was that many people from the team who created the original Dark Souls were off working on Bloodborne, and their lack of input is painfully obvious.

In essence, Dark Souls II is the classic “more for the sake of more” sequel. Sure, it has some truly memorable locations such as Majula or Heide’s Tower of Flame, but ultimately, the bulk of the game’s content just feels bland and uninspired. This includes everything from the story and level design to the majority of the bosses.

Also, we simply can’t leave out the serious graphics downgrade that had to be made so that the game could be released on last-gen consoles, only to get ported to the current-gen less than a year later.

But we could drone on and on about how exactly Dark Souls II misinterpreted what made the first game so special. The point is, it’s not a bad game, but it fails to live up to the reputation of the other entries in the franchise. In the end, the game’s main saving grace is the sheer amount of content that it has to offer.

The third and final installment in the Souls series was Dark Souls III, a game that, upon closer inspection, seems to be an amalgamation of almost everything good about both the original Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

The highly Bloodborne-esque art direction makes the game visually distinct from the previous installments in the series, all the while the combat becomes more fluid and fast-paced, eliminating all of the clunkiness that plagued the pre-Bloodborne Souls games.

The boss design, too, borrows a lot from Bloodborne, so the boss fights are generally very fast-paced, contrasting the slower bosses of the older games.

Story-wise, Dark Souls III is a standalone game. However, those who haven’t played the first one might find the narrative a bit complicated — as if the storytelling of these games wasn’t already complicated and confusing enough.

Now, some hardcore fans of the original didn’t take well to Dark Souls III, primarily because of all the inspiration it sucks from Bloodborne. And true enough, it undeniably feels far less oppressive than the first game when there are so many open environments that allow for carefree roll-spamming.

Still, the game remains second only to the original Dark Souls when taking everything into account.

Finally, we get to the 2020 remake of Demon’s Souls, which came as a surprise to many. Though it may have laid the foundation for the Souls series, as mentioned above, Demon’s Souls took a backseat and never became as popular as Dark Souls or any of the other Souls-like FromSoftware titles that followed.

Now, what’s worth noting about this game is that it is indeed a remake, not a remaster. That is to say, it is not just the same old Demon’s Souls, updated to run on the PlayStation 5 hardware in a higher resolution.

Instead, the game was remade by Bluepoint Games, the same studio behind the Shadow of the Colossus remake for the PlayStation 4 and a number of other remasters for both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 3.

Now, not only did they do an amazing job recreating the world of Boletaria, but the overall experience is more fluid, more balanced, and in many ways, the new Demon’s Souls feels like a different game, for better or for worse.

The game looks much more realistic while striving to maintain the somber atmosphere of the original, featuring new animations, re-recorded NPC dialog, and a proper orchestral soundtrack. However, while the visual changes do make Demon’s Souls 2020 feel like a much more modern game, some feel that it does take away from the original’s charm.

On the gameplay front, they added new items, rebalanced some of the old ones and ironed out many of the bugs. Most notably, healing grasses now have weight, meaning that it’s no longer possible to farm them and potentially carry around hundreds of healing items in your inventory at once.

Finally, there’s also the question of whether the Demon’s Souls remake will be available on PC. In the days leading up to its release, a trailer for the game announced that it would be released both on the PlayStation 5 and on the PC. However, Sony quickly stated that this was an error and that the new game would be launching exclusively for the PlayStation 5.

Whether this was an actual mistake or whether Sony is simply going to wait a few years before releasing the game for PC is anyone’s guess. At this point, many high-profile Sony exclusives were ported to Windows after they no longer served the purpose of boosting their console’s sales, so there’s indeed a good chance that we will see the game on PC in a couple of years.

Souls-like FromSoftware Games

The Souls series, as you probably know, has spawned an entire subgenre of action games and action RPGs that are commonly referred to as “Souls-like.” These games borrow some of the signature mechanics that Dark Souls was known for, such as the stamina bar, the penalty for dying, the sheer difficulty of the game, etcetera.

As for the creators of the original Souls series, they have also made some games that are definitely Souls-like, though they cannot exactly be bundled together with Demon’s Souls or any of the Dark Souls titles.

For the time being, the two Souls-like games made by FromSoftware are Bloodborne, a 2015 PlayStation 4 exclusive title, and the recent 2019 multiplatform release that was Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

While Bloodborne is not a “Souls” game per se, it still follows the Souls formula fairly closely and expands upon it uniquely. It is the first instance of FromSoftware tweaking their own formula.

While the Souls games encouraged the player to play it safe and punished recklessness, Bloodborne ditched shields in favor of guns and introduced a more high-risk/high-reward playstyle.

Parrying itself was less risky, the trick weapons had two modes with distinct movesets that could be switched between mid-combo, and the ability to regain health by attacking an enemy immediately after receiving damage all made Bloodborne a fluid and exhilarating experience. This also made for some genuinely nerve-wracking boss fights, and there’s no shortage of those.

Now, not only that. Bloodborne also succeeded in creating a new, memorable world that managed to seamlessly blend Gothic and Lovecraftian horror in one beautiful Victorian-era inspired setting, packed with details never seen before in any of the previous games.

But of course, no game is perfect, and Bloodborne’s main shortcoming is its Chalice Dungeons: the procedurally generated levels that players can go through to find better blood gems used for upgrading weapons.

Even though they may be a good concept on paper, the Chalice Dungeons didn’t work all that well in practice. They quickly devolve into a kind of bland grinding, which is the exact opposite of what we would expect to see in a FromSoftware game.

Bloodborne was already a departure from the established Souls formula, but it still kept the RPG elements mostly intact. Sekiro, on the other hand, is a far more significant step away from what we’re used to seeing in a Souls game.

For one, it isn’t even an RPG but an action game. It still keeps some basic stats that can be upgraded as the game goes on, and it features several skill trees with various unlockable abilities, but it plays more like a pure skill-based action game than an action RPG.

The stamina meter is gone and is replaced by the posture meter. There is only one primary weapon that the player uses throughout the game. Playstyle variety comes down to an array of different “combat arts,” which resemble the weapon skills of Dark Souls III and to “shinobi tools” that are attached to the protagonist’s prosthetic arm and function, similar to Bloodborne’s trick weapons.

In addition to that, rudimentary stealth mechanics were introduced. There is no multiplayer, and the focus switched from dodging to parrying — which is “deflecting” enemy attacks as it is referred to in the game —, all for the sake of breaking an enemy’s posture and rendering them open to devastating deathblows.

And of course, there is the signature resurrection ability referenced in the title, which allows the player to resurrect once, twice or even thrice before they have to respawn.

Overall, when it comes to the gameplay, Sekiro is probably the most difficult Souls-like game released thus far, or at least the one with the steepest learning curve, which is in no small part thanks to its fast-paced combat that puts even Bloodborne to shame.

It also differs from the previous games aesthetically: set in a fictionalized version of medieval Japan, it is more colorful, and the soundtrack features many traditional Japanese instruments. Even the storytelling is much more direct and far less cryptic than that of the previous games, which is something that some players will like while others will not.

The Final Word

And those are all the Souls games and Souls-like games released by FromSoftware thus far!

At the moment, FromSoftware is focusing on the development of Elden Ring, a highly anticipated title that George R.R. Martin is involved in. Much to the fans’ delight, a proper trailer for the game dropped in June 2021, after almost two years of radio silence following the initial E3 teaser in June 2019.

For the time being, Elden Ring seems to herald something of a return to the roots of Dark Souls, both in terms of the aesthetics and in terms of gameplay. This was met with some mixed reception among the fans who were expecting something more fresh and original, although others were quite happy to see a proper spiritual continuation of one of their favorite franchises.

As for any potential continuation of the Dark Souls series, we can’t say anything for sure. The director has stated that he doesn’t want the franchise to get stretched so thin that it loses all meaning, which is understandable. Besides, it is a given that Dark Souls will be receiving plenty of spiritual sequels such as Bloodborne and Elden Ring that aim to explore new themes while expanding the gameplay formula in meaningful ways.

As such, it is unlikely that we will see any new Dark Souls releases that aren’t remasters or remakes. However, we can probably speak for the majority of the fans when we say that we’ll be happy as long as FromSoftware keeps innovating and putting out new, engaging titles.