Can we please stop expecting FromSoft to ‘learn from’ every new Souls-like?

It still baffles me that the industry has not come up with a new term for 'Souls-likes' we can all agree on. Perhaps that’s partly to blame for why every game that rubs elbows with FromSoftware’s work has to be compared to its inspirations. Whatever new features any new game introduces – or whatever existing mechanics it tweaks – inevitably get called out as 'the best new version' that the original Japanese developer needs to incorporate into its next project. No, FromSoftware’s games don’t need to borrow from their inheritors, no more and no less than they need to learn from their contemporaries. Before this goes off the rails, this isn’t a blanket defence of the studio’s work, or a suggestion that it’s somehow infallible and therefore its games exceed whatever the imitators come up with. Even outside of the vast catalogue of games we can refer to as 'Souls-likes', FromSoft’s own games change and alter what you could think of as staple. Read more