FromSoftware News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

It’s rare that a whole new genre emerges. It’s even rarer when a new genre breaks out of its niche and becomes a significant part of the medium as a whole. But that’s exactly what has happened with Soulslikes. There’s a whole movement of games inspired by Dark Souls, and with the likes of Lords of the Fallen, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and Lies of P arriving over the past 12 months, 2023 was the ultimate proof of that. No longer just clones riding the coattails of FromSoftware, these games have built on the Souls ruleset and bloomed into a scene all of their own. Hence, there seemed no better time than now to give Soulslike its own category for this year’s IGN awards.

One Dark Souls streamer is really taking sadomasochism to the next level by alternating between different FromSoftware games every few seconds.

Lies of P developer NEOWIZ has just released a new update for the Soulslike game. The 1.4.0.0 patch adds the following three Winter Festival items, available for free to all players:

Be me, right? It's my first playthrough of Elden Ring. I'm playing a spell swordsman, which means I start a lot of fights in the Lands Between by chucking my strongest long-range spell. This strategy serves me well until I get to Castle Sol and chuck spells at the wrong dude. A notorious dual-wielding Banished Knight shrugs off my magic like it's a paper ball thrown his way, and then teleports behind me to turn my entrails into extrails before I know what happened. 

Hack and Slash games are incredible fun, but what hack and slash games should you play if you own an Xbox One? In this list, we’re going to highlight a few games that are well worth your time.

Lance McDonald just debunked the recent alleged leak for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

FromSoftware has no idea why Elden Ring was such a huge success, but it isn't going to change the way the studio makes games.

Given the growing significance of The Game Awards and the ties FromSoftware has to the show, there's potential for the debut Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC trailer appear in the show next week. Although, should that happen, you probably shouldn't expect a release date to appear at the end of it. Speaking at the PlayStation Partner Awards, it's said the expansion is still «a little ways off».

Like some karmic counter-balance to the dominance of stealth archers in the Elder Scrolls games, FromSoftware's fantasy RPGs have historically reduced bows to unimpressive damage-dealers or cheese weapons with some status effect utility. This is also true in Elden Ring, where even the best bow builds tend to struggle compared to simpler melee or magic builds. This of course means that a sub-par bow will really underperform, so it follows that a bow-only character that can't use arrows would have a devil of time. 

Anticipation continues to build as gamers are eagerly awaiting updates on the forthcoming Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. In the meantime, the base game is currently available at a discounted price in the UK. Select retailers are offering the game for a reduced rate of at least £29.99, a noteworthy markdown from the £49.99 RRP. Given the expansive nature of the game, this discount should be deemed substantial, particularly when contrasted with the potential £69.99 price tag that other publishers might command for a similar gaming experience in 2023.

FromSoftware recently received a gong for Elden Ring at the Japanese PlayStation Partners awards, as part of which producer Yasuhiro Kitao picked up the trophy and said a select few words to the press. The conference was reported on by the publication Game Watch and, as Kitao was speaking in Japanese, this is a lightly edited machine translation of his remarks.

Following Dark Souls’ controller-breaking impact, countless Soulsbornelikes emerged from the shadows looking to contend with Fromsoftware’s super-tough formula. Now, one indie game is instead paying homage to the studio’s forgotten gems.

We’re getting closer to the second anniversary of Elden Ring by FromSoftware. The game was not only the biggest title of 2022 by many people’s estimations but also the pinnacle of all that FromSoftware had been building toward since they began making their brutal style of games. While the ones they made are technically not connected to one another outside of the original trilogy, this title took all the elements they had put together throughout the titles to make them unique and then added even more elements to make it shine. The result was a game that gamers and critics loved, and numerous awards were bestowed upon it.

FromSoftware’s first paid expansion forElden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, was announced his year for consoles and PC. However, no gameplay, details or a launch date have been revealed thus far. However, parent company Kadokawa Corporation said development is “proceeding smoothly” last month, a statement echoed by producer Yasuhiro Kitao during the PlayStation Partner Awards 2023 in Japan.

Elden Ring DLC is still a ways off from releasing, a FromSoftware developer has revealed.

The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree may not be releasing anytime soon, judging from the comments made by FromSoftware Lead Producer Yasuhiro Kitao in a recent interview.

Elden Ring may be about to get some new content, judging from some recent behind-the-scenes activity on Steam.

One Elden Ring player has been intentionally weakening themselves in PvP, just to give their foes the “satisfaction” of achieving an overkill. 

Armored Core 6 was a triumph—it gave second wind to FromSoftware's mecha franchise, brought new fans into the genre (myself included) and it let you gun down tanks as a 20ft-tall Pepsi Man, what more could you want? Co-op, that's what.

An Armored Core 6 co-op mod is currently in the works from the modder that brought you a similar mod for Elden Ring.

Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon is already pretty damn cool as is, what with the giant mechs zooming about and making things go boom. But now imagine two (or more) mecha-besties zooming about and making things go boom together. Cooperatively. That’s what one upcoming Armored Core 6 mod aims to enable, and it’s coming from the modder who brilliantly implemented co-op in both Elden Ring and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

If you've ever wondered what it'd feel like to be back in 1999, booting up your PSX and popping in a Dark Souls disc, then modder thegreatgramcracker over on Nexus Mods has got you covered with Pixel Souls: Demastered.

Elden Ring hero Let Me Solo Them recently hit her long-running goal of helping 5,000 Xbox players beat the final bosses of FromSoftware's RPG epic, Radagon and the Elden Beast. Initially inspired by the Malenia-slaying efforts of community legend Let Me Solo Her, Solo Them has become a Jarnished icon in their own right, and she's still fighting the good fight after all this time.

Spoiler Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Elden Ring, with mentions of its final bosses.

Elden Ring player Let Me Solo Them has now helped 5000 people defeat the game's final boss.

Assassin's Creed Red, the next entry in the series by Ubisoft set in Feudal Japan, is going to take some pages from the books of a few FromSoftware games, according to a new online report.

The impact of Elden Ring is still being felt as one modder has put the iconic Malenia into Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

An Elden Ring modder has taken the game's hardest boss, Malenia, Blade of Miquella, and put her inside fellow FromSoftware title Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

It always kind of felt like Elden Ring's super hard megaboss Malenia was a transplant from Sekiro, FromSoftware's fast-paced, parry-focused ninja action game. Her aggressive swordplay could just about do laps around my sluggish Tarnished⁠—she almost seems to demand a Wolf's precision.

Over the last couple of years, Sony has taken considerable steps to expand PlayStation’s presence in media beyond video games, with projects like TV shows based on The Last of Us and Twisted Metal, and films based on the likes of Uncharted and Gran Turismo. And it seems like Bloodborne could soon join that list.

One prominent Dark Souls modder has created a massive new modding tool that could allow for even wackier, cooler creations to pop out of Lordran.

It's been the better part of a year since the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Edrtree expansion was announced, and we've heard nothing of note about it since. The most recent financial report out of FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa brings both good news and bad on that front, which can be summed up in a single brief sentence: It's coming along nicely.

There’s good news and bad news for those who are anxiously anticipating the release of Elden Ring’s DLC expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. The good news is that development on it is going well, according to FromSoftware’s parent company, Kadokawa. The bad news is that there’s still no release date for it. 

Earlier this year, FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco announced Shadow of the Erdtree, a large-scale expansion for acclaimed 2022 open world action RPG Elden Ring, and though updates on it have been next to non-existence since its announcement, development seems to be going well behind the scenes.

Dark Souls and Bloodborne developer FromSoftware has said development on Elden Ring's highly anticipated expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is "proceeding smoothly".

Development on Elden Ring’s first expansion is "proceeding smoothly."

The development of the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is proceeding smoothly, but we still don't know exactly when we will be able to return to The Lands Between.

Elden Ring was by far and away one of the most prolific games of last year. It won itself scores of praise and accolades following its release in February 2022, including topping Eurogamer's own Game of the Year list.

The Soulslike game Lies of P turned out to be a big success for NEOWIZ, selling over one million units in less than a month (despite being available on Game Pass) and earning a positive reception from fans and critics alike. Here on Wccftech, Lies of P earned an 8 out of 10 score from Francesco De Meo:

Bandai Namco has released the soundtrack for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon as part of its Bandai Namco Game Music label. The soundtrack is available on all global streaming platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify.

Fallen Tear: The Ascension has been on my wishlist ever since I found myself scrounging around the search-action space in the latest Steam Next Fest, and now developer Winter Crew has come in for the kill with a bold claim, saying this could be "the Elden Ring of Metroidvania in terms of map size."

I've only just read Sin's thoughts on Akuma Kira's Lunacid and lo and behold, the PS1-styled, first-person dungeon crawler has now released out of Steam Early Access, to considerable rejoicing. Lunacid is a homage to classic FromSoftware games - no, not that juvenile upstart Dark Souls, but King's Field and Shadow's Tower, which date back to the late 1990s.

FromSoftware has been quite busy over the last couple of years – as is usually the case with the Japanese studio – having delivered two widely acclaimed games in Elden Ring and Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, and as you would expect, the developer has plenty more currently in the pipeline as well, for which it also seems to be kicking off a recruitment drive.

A recruiting drive at FromSoftware suggests a major expansion of the Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne developer is underway.

FromSoftware is reportedly gearing up for a large recruitment spree in anticipation of several upcoming projects.

Today, IGN Japan reports that esteemed Tokyo-based developer FromSoftware has begun 'large-scale recruitment' for multiple projects, as evidenced by this webpage on the studio's website.

Even a year-and-a-half after release Elden Ring retains mystique, secrets, areas of the game that even the most dedicated cannot fully unravel. This is of course by design and has been the way ever since Demon's Souls, with FromSoftware always aiming to leave plenty of room for player interpretation: it's arguably one of the reasons that the lore of these games really sticks with people.

Dark Souls is an interconnected game—if you datamine out a full model of Lordran, you're able to look at the entire breadth of it like it's a model train set, from the swamps of Blighttown to the hallowed halls of Anor Londo.

Elden Ring is a game constantly throwing up new mysteries, but one head scratcher involving a datamined sword had Elden Ring fans stumped for the past couple of months. Dataminers had discovered several icons depicting three unique swords, one encased in a stone sheath, and two more unsheathed and with intricate designs. After searching high and low for these mysterious weapons, fans had chalked these icons and swords off as cut content.

An Elden Ring fan has discovered that a sword cut from the game has, in fact, been right under our noses all this time.

Luxury streetwear based on Elden Ring has just dropped, but it'll cost you up to £1,400/$1,700 to buy the clothes.

Pinocchio souslike Lies of P has hit a major sales milestone in just under one month, despite being both a new IP and available on Xbox and PC Game Pass on day one. With more of the action RPG on the way, it’s safe to say that developer Round8 Studio has found itself a hit, and it looks like it will continue to grow.

Lies of P, the Pinocchio-themed Souslike from Korean developer Neowiz, has reached 1m copies sold within a month of its release.

South Korean developer NEOWIZ announced that its Soulslike game Lies of P has managed to sell more than one million units in less than a month from its release. It is undoubtedly an impressive figure for a new IP, and doubly so since the game is available on Game Pass.

FromSoftware’s Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon has earned critical acclaim, but its sales are somewhat of a mystery. It topped the weekly sales charts in Japan with over 163,000 units sold, becoming the second-biggest launch in the series, but the total number of units sold worldwide is unknown. However, voice actor Ryo Shimokawa, who played Pater (V.VIII), seems to know.

It’s been nine years between the original and rebooted Lords of the Fallen, and the soulslike game space has completely changed in that time. Not only has FromSoftware continued to refine its design up to the masterful Elden Ring, but many imitators have tried to carve out a space, and countless other games have had soulslike elements baked into their design too. The change has been so drastic that the initial player numbers for both the 2014 and 2023 versions of Lords of the Fallen have massively differing player peaks, with the newer game seeing five times the players of the original at launch.

If you haven't been keeping an eye on early 2024, we'd encourage you to do so. The current release schedule is, quite frankly, absurd. In the space of just under two months, we're getting:

Dark Souls 3's hardest bosses are routinely getting punished by Elden Ring's most devoted players as they wait for the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC to finally release.

The soulslike genre is hardly an unexplored frontier these days. While I generally detest using the “like” nomenclature, it’s hard to deny that FromSoftware made some very specific tweaks to the action-RPG genre that keep getting lifted wholesale. I was recently perturbed by Lies Of P essentially just lifting Bloodborne, sprinkling some variations from other Souls games, and then just calling it a day. I have trouble applauding someone for just copying the successes of another company wholesale.

Lords of the Fallen developer Hexworks issues a strong and emphatic stance regarding Denuvo Anti-Tamper tech and its inclusion in the new soulslike. A grimdark RPG with shades of FromSoftware classics like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Demon’s Souls, Lords of the Fallen is also a remake and reimagining of the 2014 game of the same name. As a variety of recent games include Denuvo, such as Lies of P and Total War: Pharaoh, Hexworks outlines its perspective on incorporating the download-rights management (DRM) software into Lords of the Fallen.

Lords of the Fallen is both a reboot and a sequel to Lords of the Fallen. That original game released all the way back in 2014, when Soulslikes were still pretty new, and it got alright reviews as people keenly sought for something to fill the gaps between FromSoftware releases, though is now viewed through whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses is.

The map in Elden Ring is stupid huge.

How many spirits do you think are surrounding you at this very moment? Lords of the Fallen presents you with this grim newfound curiosity, then hands over the tool to satiate it. A lamp lets you take a peek at the realm of the dead — called the Umbral realm — in real time during your crusade. In an instant, the lamplight reveals that a seemingly inaccessible lake hides a traversable hollow pit, while innocuous corridors become swarmed with floating corpses. Yet, as compelling as this use of dual realities is, Lords of the Fallen can’t escape the cold touch of an array of design and pace frustrations that plague the entire experience.

Steam Next Fest is upon us, and the spectre of Dark Souls is hovering firmly over the entire affair. There are no fewer than 20 demos sitting under the Souls-like tag, from 2D, Salt and Sanctuary-esque efforts like The Last Faith to traditional-yet-catgirlified games like Kristala. But there's one game that I've had my eyes on for a while already, and having now played its demo, I'm more excited for it than ever.

The upcoming Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC could very well launch early next year on February 5, 2024.

Pikmin 4 was the best-selling game in Japan in September, for the third month running.

Elden Ring  was a massive hit and easily a game that a player could easily spend countless hours going through. However, we know that FromSoftware is not done with the title quite yet. There is a DLC planned called  Shadow of the Erdtree . Unfortunately, details have been scarce, and we’re unsure when this game expansion will pop up again. With that said, a new rumor has started to spread online that not only suggests when we’ll see this game again but also when exactly the expansion will be landing in the marketplace. 

The surprisingly great Pinocchio Soulslike made a tried and true Dark Souls strategy even more effective, and now players can’t stop cheesing it.

Dark Souls with old-school Resident Evil-style camera angles is so cursed, even the person who created it says its "godawful."

FromSoftware released a new patch for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon on Thursday, and three very overdue targets were struck by the nerf laser. Say a fond farewell to your reliably overpowered SG-027 Zimmerman shotguns, Songbirds grenade cannons, and Stun Needle Launcher.

They had it coming.

Armored Core 6 patch 1.31 has landed like a missile barrage, and between unsurprising nerfs and long-awaited buffs, FromSoftware's mech beatdown is suddenly a whole new game. 

Standalone Expansions, half-sequels, glorified DLC… whatever you want to call it, I’m a fan of these kinds of not-quite-full game, not-quite-DLC experiences. And with AAA game development now expected to take longer than ever, these half-sequels might be a way to address a potential new release shortage. So far nobody has done them better than PlayStation.

Lies of P has some of the tightest parry timing I've come across in any action game, but it also gives you one of the most overpowered items I've ever seen in a Soulslike, let alone a true Souls game: an honest-to-god auto-parry. 

A few areas of Armored Core 6 feature regular, normal-sized cars that come up to approximately toe-height on your average Armored Core mech, showing just how massive these machines can be. In an even more dramatic comparison, it turns out the largest mech in FromSoftware's latest game is approximately half the size of the studio's biggest game, Elden Ring.

Lies of P is a Souls-like in the tradition of FromSoftware's greats, but one which has carved out a place of its own with an impressive commercial showing (we thought it was great, too). This subgenre is infamous for the exacting nature of its difficulty, but things have actually been dialled back quite substantially in the game's most recent revision.

It feels like Lies of P has managed to stand out in an increasingly bloated subgenre. Souls-likes are everywhere these days, and developers know that they need to craft something pretty special if their project is to compare favourably to FromSoftware's elite action RPGs. South Korea's Round8 Studio should pat itself on the back, then, because Lies of P seems to be a hit.

Finally, someone has gotten around to modding maps from FromSoftware's recent mech epic Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon into Elden Ring, the studio's magnum opus. While it might seem silly (unnecessary even) to zip around environments designed for massive mechs in human form, fans were quick to note the surprising level of detail and scale the studio had included when seen from a different perspective.

Developer FromSoftware has announced its action RPG Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has now sold through over 10 million copies. This figure includes physical and digital sales data across all platforms.