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Are the "Soulsborne" games really THAT popular?

Do you really like "Soulsborne" games? (Your vote is not public)

  • Yes, I like them

    Votes: 230 76.9%
  • No, I don't like them

    Votes: 69 23.1%

  • Total voters
    299

ZywyPL

Banned
Not a fan of those kind of games, I greatly prefer a fast paced combat like in old God of Wars for example. Only Ashen got me hooked up for a longer bit, mostly because of its absolutely gorgeous visuals/setting, but the usual sluggish combat eventually made me drop the game.


Cp8H43F.png

Also Cleric Beast is optional. Father Gascione is first required boss:
fiH721f.png

That's probably one of the reasons the sequel is nowhere near to be found on the horizon - Sony sees that not only the game didn't sell god knows how much to begin with, but there wouldn't be much of an audience for a second one given they didn't even bother defending the very first boss. So going by the math, we're talking about a potential 1-1,5MLN copies sold, and Sony has already killed multiple franchises in the recent past that were way more popular than that. IMO they should bow down to the audience and port the game to PC where it would gain a second live and elevate the sales numbers, that's where the the target audience for those kind of games is first and foremost, and then review again the potential for a sequel.
 

martino

Member
i just finished dark souls 1 two weeks ago...i'm currently playing ds3 again (run blood twin dagger )
(this is also a good way to see how superior ds3 is to ds1 at near everything when played one after the other)
 
SoulsBorne is the new Metroidvania. The next step in the evolution of Zelda type games
They are becoming mainstream. I would argue the already are with all the poor clones out there.

re: difficulty, If the soulsborne series were released in the 80s-90s they wouldn’t be considered remotely difficult. An actual difficult game is NES Battletoads, NES Ghosts n Goblins, or GCN F Zero GX Story mode.

The closest I came to giving up was on Fume Knight in DS2
 
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RedVIper

Banned
So going by the math, we're talking about a potential 1-1,5MLN copies sold, and Sony has already killed multiple franchises in the recent past that were way more popular than that.

Are you talking about bloodborne? We know it sold way more than that.

People not getting trophies is completely normal, especially since the game was free on +
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Are you talking about bloodborne? We know it sold way more than that.

It did, 3MLN+ as far as I'm aware, but if not even half of its players bothered to spend more than 1h with the game, how many of them will look up for the sequel?
 

Sygma

Member
Souls games are one of the most influential because they broke the super casual output which couldn't stop at some point back when DS 1 was a thing. Then the popularity just grew bigger and you started getting very different genres with the same formula used in Souls

I'll still say that its no more than Ninja Gaiden with stamina, and that From just ripped off everything already existing in forgotten times, arranged it in a dark fantasy settings and made an insane amount of cash, which is good for them but, in all honesty, I couldn't finish DS 3 due to how bored I was midway through, and Sekiro really was the core definition of overrated. I'm hoping they'll do something else going forward, plus I wouldn't mind a new lost kingdoms tbh or Armored Core for that matter
 

DavidGzz

Member
Very popular but not among the more casual. The whole "prepare to die" and the talk of it's difficulty has stopped many from even giving it a try. They are the greatest games ever.
 

Sentenza

Member
27 million copies across the entire franchise and 10 millions for DS3 alone: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/363219/The_Dark_Souls_franchise_has_topped_27_million_lifetime_sales.php#:~:text=Newsbrief: The Dark Souls series,launching back in March 2016.
And this was a year old data I found with a quick google search.

I'd say it's doing rather well.

P.S. these numbers do not include Demon's Souls and Bloodborne.

P.P.S. The title and the poll make two different questions, by the way. Fuck this bullshit.
 
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RedVIper

Banned
It did, 3MLN+ as far as I'm aware, but if not even half of its players bothered to spend more than 1h with the game, how many of them will look up for the sequel?

The trophies actually give us over 11M people who played the game. It was free on plus which is why you have so many people who spent little time with the game, they got it for free, started, die immediately, and left.

Again, the game released early in the PS4 generation, it's pretty normal it sold less than if it had released when it had a 100M userbase.

Demon souls sold just fine and Sony deemed it worth to make it so I think a bloodborne sequel would sell even more, it's a much bigger name,
 

Vae_Victis

Banned
AND DESPITE ALL THAT AND YET, I've never seem this games explode like some big milestones in gaming history, like MOBAs, Minecraft or Battle Royale games. If everyone and their mother in the gaming community craves for them (even with the difficulty barriers and such) I think this games should be way bigger than its fan base makes it out to be.

Games, franchises and entire genres can be popular and profitable even if they don't reach the absolute top floor of popularity.

The inconvenient truth with gaming is that a non insignificant portion of gamers are kids and young teenagers, it will always be like that and that is bound to heavily shape the market. There are some genres that are almost completely indigestible to those audiences, because they are willingly or unwillingly obtuse, not flashy or accommodating, and require a more proactive mental effort to be understood and a lot of patience for relatively little emotional reward.

Of course I'm not saying there a game either appeals "to kids" or "to adults", there are hundreds of sub-groups inside each with their own preferences, but whenever one of the two main groups is almost completely precluded to you, you are playing on a different league from the start. Put a Soulsborne game in the hands of kids or young teens, 95 out of 100 will get frustrated very quickly and their first reaction will be "this game is stupid and unfair" rather than "OK, I need to re-think my approach". I know I would have if I had tried to play Bloodborne when I was 12 or 13.

Every "milestone" as you call them is simply something that appeals to both kids and adults on a large scale, and rakes in the big numbers with both. Failing to do that doesn't mean a product is not popular or it doesn't sell. Assuming something has to be the "best" seller in the universe or you should not even bother making it is pure hyper-capitalism retardation that only leads to industry collapses in the long run.


Cp8H43F.png

Also Cleric Beast is optional. Father Gascione is first required boss:
fiH721f.png

Keep in mind Bloodborne was given with PS Plus at some point, and there were likely millions of people who had zero interest in it before, opened it once just to see what the fuss was about, NOPEd out of it after 15 minutes and never looked back. With that in mind, these are actually pretty impressive numbers for a supposed "fringe" genre.

If you look for example at the Trophies of Horizon Zero Dawn, which is supposed to belong to one of the big "mainstream" genres of our times, there is still a clear 25-30% of users who dropped it very very quickly. 34% of people completeld Horizon's main questline, and 25% of people defeated Mergo's Wet Nurse in Bloodborne (which happens very very close to the end, but due to the multiple endings with different Trophies - and the fact some people did more than one - it's very hard to gauge story completition from those). There are actually more people who got the Bloodborne's Platinum (6.4%) than Horizon's (5.9%), even though they are both very straightforward and only require you to play the game in full with no particular cryptic nonsense or grinding required.
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
The trophies actually give us over 11M people who played the game. It was free on plus which is why you have so many people who spent little time with the game, they got it for free, started, die immediately, and left.

Again, the game released early in the PS4 generation, it's pretty normal it sold less than if it had released when it had a 100M userbase.

Demon souls sold just fine and Sony deemed it worth to make it so I think a bloodborne sequel would sell even more, it's a much bigger name,

BB was released on PS+ in early 2018, there were already over 70-75MLN PS4 users by then, if all those people really wanted to play the game they would do so long time before that, but apparently they wouldn't care if it wasn't free. Regardless, Sony has all the data surrounding the game, pointing them towards not making a sequel. Tha being said, I think DS Remake reception can impact whether there will be a BB sequel or/and a remake of the original.
 

Roufianos

Member
I always wanted to like them but didn't 'git gud' until the Demon's Souls remake and I since went back and beat Dark Souls III.

They're obviously one of the most popular franchises among the core but I wouldn't say that have much mainstream appeal. Sort of like MGS.
 

SnapShot

Member
This happens with a lot of the more h1rdc0r3 and competitive game communities full of sweaty neckbeards, not just the Souls games, just try criticizing CS:GO or any of the toxic tactical shooters and you'll see. Best to just ignore them altogether if you don't like them.
 
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Relativ9

Member
Yes and no, they are system sellers ato their core fans and that's why they are treated with such importance by the gaming community and console makers. They will never sell COD numbers, but they might actually be more important to gaming zeitgeist anyway.
 

RedVIper

Banned
BB was released on PS+ in early 2018, there were already over 70-75MLN PS4 users by then, if all those people really wanted to play the game they would do so long time before that, but apparently they wouldn't care if it wasn't free.

That's not how it works.

Games always sell way more on release, if the game had released with a 100M user base it would have been marketed towards a those 100M, instead it released to 1/5 of the userbase.

Do you honestly think killzone wouldn't sell more if it had released in 2019 instead of being a launch title?
 

Josemayuste

Member
I thought that Soulsborne/Sekiro was kind of niche until some casual player friends of mine told me about a little game called Bloodborne, and they thought it was their GOTG, the genre its more popular than it seems, and its in no way linked to its sales it seems.
 

Gaelyon

Gold Member
I love love love the souls games. I begin with 2009's Demon's soul and played all of them. Yes it's an eternal remake of the first one with additional refinements each iteration. The formula is so good it's wonderfull.

But it's a niche genre, it cannot be appreciated by casual gamers or even some core gamers with different expectations. There's some elitism from the souls community sometimes which can alienate further the gaming audience. However, it's a masterpiece of game design and a bless to gaming. And the formula is not that easy to replicate, as no one did better than From to this day.
 
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Shubh_C63

Member
Popularity and Profitability aren't the same thing.

Everybody likes Soulsborne, some small section waaayyyy too much though. But most don't play it for obvious reasons.

OSU is also popular with a small section of people. But I doubt its sale will break any records.
 

K' Dash

Member
I love all the Souls games and Sekiro, but despise Bloodborne, I reached the last third of the game and just stopped playing, it's not like a boss or a section of the game was kicking my ass, I just didn't care at all and loved on.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
That's not how it works.

Games always sell way more on release, if the game had released with a 100M user base it would have been marketed towards a those 100M, instead it released to 1/5 of the userbase.

Do you honestly think killzone wouldn't sell more if it had released in 2019 instead of being a launch title?

Not really, case in point - Days Gone, Death Stranding etc. As history proved over and over again, good games will sell regardless, take GTA5 for example, which almost a decade later still tops the sales chars each month, because people crave to play the game that much.
 

Certinty

Member
Hate them to be honest, tried several times to get into Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 and it just never clicked and I got bored doing the same crap over and over again.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
I put them up there with rougelikes. Not really my thing but can see why some people like doing the same thing over and over. I feel that way with destiny. Enjoyed it when it was new with original Demon Soul but dont care much for them any more.
 

RedVIper

Banned
Not really, case in point - Days Gone, Death Stranding etc. As history proved over and over again, good games will sell regardless, take GTA5 for example, which almost a decade later still tops the sales chars each month, because people crave to play the game that much.

Death stranding sold like 4m on playstation. It was a really weird game with even weirder gameplay.

Days gone sold around 4m aswell.

Killzone sold like 2m, an established franchise against two new franchises.

You think you're disagreeing with me but you're just proving me right, bigger userbase resulted in more sales for those games, if killzone had realesed later it would have blown them out of the water.

GTA is still selling because of GTA online, it's a retarded comparison.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
Yes. They essentially created a new genre that multiple clones were birthed from. Some were great, some were good, some were fine. But it was clear that these games were all extremely influenced from the Souls titles.
 

skit_data

Member
I missed the original joy, sense of discovery and challenge in hand crafted single player enviroment. It went so far that i almost stopped gaming. Then a friend gave me Dark Souls as some sort of a cruel joke, and since then my faith in gaming has restored thanks to Froms influence in gaming as a whole.
 
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zaanan

Banned
Keep in mind Bloodborne was given with PS Plus at some point, and there were likely millions of people who had zero interest in it before, opened it once just to see what the fuss was about, NOPEd out of it after 15 minutes and never looked back.
Good point about PS+, I can see that dropping those trophy numbers way down.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
You think you're disagreeing with me but you're just proving me right, bigger userbase resulted in more sales for those games, if killzone had realesed later it would have blown them out of the water.

GTA is still selling because of GTA online, it's a retarded comparison.

KZ:SF also had online, so going by the same logic, it should've continue to sell within time and consoles sold... The reality is the series were on a serious decline after 3rd installment already, and no userbase could've change that. For whatever the reason, every Killzone games are vastly different from each other, the franchise never had any baseline identity when it comes to gameplay, many agree that KZ2 was just a " pleasant accident", which GG was never able to recreate", but that's about it as far as the franchise goes. Another good example is BF series, the userbase grows every year yet the sales only decline. The mentioned DG and DS had a 100MLN+ userbase when they were launching, so that's not there the issue lies as well.
 

RedVIper

Banned
KZ:SF also had online, so going by the same logic, it should've continue to sell within time and consoles sold... The reality is the series were on a serious decline after 3rd installment already, and no userbase could've change that. For whatever the reason, every Killzone games are vastly different from each other, the franchise never had any baseline identity when it comes to gameplay, many agree that KZ2 was just a " pleasant accident", which GG was never able to recreate", but that's about it as far as the franchise goes. Another good example is BF series, the userbase grows every year yet the sales only decline. The mentioned DG and DS had a 100MLN+ userbase when they were launching, so that's not there the issue lies as well.

DS and DG sold a lot more due to having a bigger userbase.

I'm starting to think you're retarded.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Great poll about a enthusiastic game on a enthusiastic forum.

Next let's ask if ferrari is the best car on a ferrari forum.

These souls games gets a lot of praise here, and while it may be a good game these games surely aren't for everyone, let alone casuals.
 

Ailynn

Faith - Hope - Love
I loved Star Wars: Fallen Order and Salt & Sanctuary, but those are the only ones considered part of the genre that I've played through to completion. Also Hollow Knight and Blasphemous if they count.

There's just something about the style of the true Souls games that I never really cared for.
 
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Hate them to be honest, tried several times to get into Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 and it just never clicked and I got bored doing the same crap over and over again.
Hm. I feel that they are actually the opposite.

Most games these days feel like once you've played a few hours you pretty much have the game locked down and the big surprises come in the form of the story, not the gameplay.

RDR2 is excellent but the missions after first 2 chapters don't often offer up anything really surprising or difficult to deal with.

At least with Souls games there is the possibility that the next boss will offer something new and different and will be a challenge to overcome. Sometimes that's true for entire areas of the game. Like when you discover Cainhurst in Bloodborne and the basic enemies and boss are just an all new challenge.

Even a great game like Ghost of Tsushima suffers from the player becoming too overpowered too quickly and everything becomes a bit trivial.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Even a great game like Ghost of Tsushima suffers from the player becoming too overpowered too quickly and everything becomes a bit trivial.
I really enjoyed GoT but that game severely suffered from copy & paste design, even duals suffered because most of them have same animation and move sets.
 
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I really enjoyed GoT but that game severely suffered from copy & paste design, even duals suffered because most of have same animation and move sets.
I think they were really going for an idea that there would be many, many, different ways to clear out camps and so they didn't focus too much on bosses.

In the end though it's what you would do in Sekiro where you thin out the enemy numbers and then go head to head. Just less options in Sekiro but that is balanced by having wildly different bosses and when you get to the final boss it's like there is still elements of gameplay still to be mastered.

Ubisoft games are also really poor for this. I think many players would get through the final 10 hours or so of Origins, Odyssey or Valhalla without really encountering anything new or challenging.
 
the lore and the atmosphere is amazing, but the gameplay is too stressful for someone like me to fully enjoy, no matter how many times I have tried to. It's a game I like to see, but not to play.
 

V4skunk

Banned
It did, 3MLN+ as far as I'm aware, but if not even half of its players bothered to spend more than 1h with the game, how many of them will look up for the sequel?
Bloodborne is also free on ps+ and was a free monthly game a couple of years ago.
How many people tried it for the first time while it is free?
 
they were popular with hardcore gamers from ages now long past - few still around.

gamers today are all about building sandcastles with their friends in a sandbox for kids.
 

CitizenZ

Banned
I loved Star Wars: Fallen Order and Salt & Sanctuary, but those are the only ones considered part of the genre that I've played through to completion. Also Hollow Knight and Blasphemous if they count.

There's just something about the style of the true Souls games that I never really cared for.

i love S&S probably more than the DS series IMO. Somthing about the art style and knowing it was mainly just 2 people(husband and wife) who created the game
 
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