What comes next for FromSoftware?

More accurately, this article is more “What features should the next FromSoftware hit have?” but that doesn’t work particularly well as a title.

But first, the DLC Teaser

It's never been anything officially confirmed, nor would it ever be, but the DLC's always seem to ease the next major From project. Dark Souls' Artorias of the Abyss has Marvellous Chester, a man in fine long coat rather than typical dark souls armour, wielding a sword and crossbow - a style replicated in Bloodborne with the Weapon/Gun Combo.

Bloodborne's DLC, The Old Hunters introduced a very minor character - Yamamura. Yamamura wore garb very similar to that of Wolf from Sekiro, as well as belonging to a faction known as The Confederacy. The Confederacy hunt down creatures known as Vermin - little centipedes. Sekiro's plot revolves heavily around Centipedes.

Sekiro itself didn't get DLC so there was no tease for Elden Ring. That being said, Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't seem to have any kind of outlier character to speak of. There is one, though I hesitate - Dryleaf Dane. Dane is one of Miquella's followers and only one of two guaranteed to be in the final fight alongside Needle Knight Leda regardless of quest choice. Dane also has a boss fight that can be accessed by using a gesture in front of them. This is one of only N bosses in the entire Soulsborne franchise that is technically missable (Not including moving into NG+).

So is Dryleaf Dane the tease? Is the next Souls game hand to hand combat themed? I've got no idea personally, but these are the things I think the next major Soulsgame will have:

Rally? Deflect? Why not both!

Rally, introduced in Bloodborne was a mechanic where if the player took damage, they had a limited window to regain health by attacking the enemy. A lot of the time, it was possible to fully regain against all damage taken. Deflect was the main mechanic of Sekiro, in which enemies had posture bars. If a posture bar was filled, an instant kill could be performed. Less health meant slower posture regain. Both of these were brought back for Elden Ring in some capacity - the rally comes from activating Malenia's Great Rune in the base game while the Deflecting Hard Tear for the Wonderous Physick introduced in the DLC brought back the perfect parry mechanic (Without the poise break instant kill).

Unlike their respective games, these are both temporary effects – the former is locked behind a late game super boss, requiring an item to activate and is only active until death. The latter only lasts 5 minutes upon use but can reset at every checkpoint. The only permanent mechanic Elden Ring has is the Guard Counter which lets the player retort after blocking a hit (which obviously ties in well with the introduced Deflect).

The question is then, how would you balance these mechanics? If you could both perfect block/deflect for no damage or rally your health back if you missed then the game would be pretty easy. Enemies would have to be super aggressive with their attacks. I don’t think tying it to individual weapons is the right call? Perhaps Talismans/Rings? Then again, using a potential slot for what could be seen as a central mechanic might not go over well. I think the answer is in a new idea. While the runes in Bloodborne replaced traditional rings/talismans, they could be introduced in as an extra element. Of course you don’t want to overcomplicate things, so these rune slots would have to be major things like Deflect, Rally and things like transformations. The ring slots would then be reserved for the likes of your spell boosts or quieter footsteps and the like.

I don’t really have a section for this, just saying that now jumping has been introduced, there’s no going back to anything else.

Going for a little swim

Introduced and so far exclusive to Sekiro has been swimming. Easier to have in Sekiro than in other titles as there’s no build customisation so there was no need to worry about how different armours/weapons (and equip loads) would affect the swimming. After Elden Ring’s open world, I believe this is the next step – how many people saw the Dragon Communion Island off the coast of Limgrave, thought they could swim there only to die. Going underground through the Demi-Human infested Coastal Cave was okay I guess, but there could have been more.

I imagine different levels of equip load would have to be ignored for swimming lest the player have an awful time. Different weapons underwater would be interesting to balance too, same goes with magic. Is the solution no combat underwater then? Sekiro’s underwater combat extended as far as some fish and one incarnation of the Headless so perhaps it isn’t mandatory. What about PVP? Do you just have to block off all water when an invasion happens? These are all design questions that I’m not qualified to answer.

In terms of pure exploration, the options are near limitless – entire hidden zones ala The Great Hollow could be accessed via a lake somewhere in the world, for one example.

Cosmic horror is so in right now!

While Bloodborne was very clearly inspired by the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft – Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth etc, the love for cosmic has extended into Elden Ring with its general space theme – Gravity magic, The Carians worshipping the Moon, as well as bosses like Astel from base game and Metyr from the DLC.

Obviously I don’t know the general setting of the next game – I can’t imagine they’ll got to sci-fi fully, so if the next game is also fantasy – more dark fantasy than Elden Ring’s high-ish fantasy then having some more aliens add a little bit of flair to the games.

And some normal horror, as a little treat

Mentioning Bloodborne once again for the Gothic horror part of the game, with areas like Yahar’gul and Upper Cathedral Ward being areas that send shivers down the spine. Sekiro’s dark Buddhism is a source of scares in the depths of the Abandoned Dungeon and heights of Mt Kongo. Now Elden Ring’s Abyssal Woods has brought us stealth horror against the nigh invulnerable Aged Untouchables who are a homage to the Winter Lanterns.

I love this stuff and think you could dedicate an entire area to this kind of theming and aesthetic. The key is to make it fun on replays – horror relies on surprise and the Souls games are fairly rigid in their ability to be repeated, upon death and in future playthroughs – NG+ or otherwise. My previous example of the Abyssal Woods, people just run their way through it completely ignoring the Aged Untouchables. I don’t know if you would have to make it a linear “controlled” experience but just something that means the horror can’t be mitigated so easily.

My kingdom for some boss rematches

This is a feature we’ll never get back, unfortunately. There’s too many variables in the normal Souls formula that Sekiro with its single build gameplay didn’t have to deal with. Some kind of slider system wouldn’t fit FromSoftware’s design philosophy. The only way I can see this working is that you have to fight the boss at the exact same level and equipment that you did it the first time.

An alternative system could be a gauntlet as it wouldn’t matter how overlevelled you are, you still have to marathon your way through however many boss fights. It’s not quite as elegant a solution and doesn’t solve the want to rematch one specific boss but it’s not an easy problem to solve.

Design to rival the architects of Ashina

Something Sekiro doesn’t get enough credit for is the immaculate level design. The world is smaller than that of Lordran but it’s so densely packed full of content with hidden pathways and routes you wouldn’t expect. The Path to the Gun Fort, the Ninjistu path to access the Fresh and Dried Serpent Viscera for the alternate endings, even the side routes to access two of the Headless fights. There’s no other Fromsoftware game that matches that this.

And I want more. Imagine a game that seemed segregated like the Archstones of Demon Souls but a secret path took you to a different one? Suppose I’m just describing Banjo Tooie there, but wouldn’t that be cool. More secrets FromSoftware, more Ash Lakes and alternate paths to Deeproot Depths. Shadow of the Erdtree was a step in the right direction but I need more.

Chalice Dungeons, really? A team of your talents?

I truly believe that after the Chalice Dungeons of Bloodborne and the Caves, Grottos, Ruins, Catacombs and gaols of Elden Ring, FromSoftware are closer than ever to realising what they want to do with short form dungeon content.

I think the solution is to do something a little bit out of their usual wheelhouse, and that’s to have a more traditional roguelike dungeon crawling experience ala The Binding of Isaac. By that I mean that there is infinite floors (or more than the sets of 3 or 5) of changing locales like Elden Rings caves and catacombs but also more open areas like the ones the Four Belfries take you too and yes even the dungeons like in Bloodborne.

I don’t know which approach would be best – complete reset/classes or using the equipment you have from your playthrough. If the latter, then Shadow of the Erdtree’s Scadutree Blessing system would work to alleviate the problem the Chalice Dungeons had – which was leaving them all until late game. Since they didn’t scale to the players level, the first few could be breezed through.

Another point of contention that would need to be fixed is the requirements that the Chalice Dungeon had. A barrier to entry for the sake of having a barrier to entry, requiring a ton of mindless grinding for items that exist purely for this purpose.

Like I say, I feel like FromSoftware on the cusp here. The next game could be the one to master it.

The next game from FromSoftware may be close or it may be further away. If the game has some of these features, great. If it has none of them, oh well – it’s still a FromSoftware game and they haven’t disappointed me in the last 15 years. One of the best in the business.