The Future of FromSoftware
(what I hope to see)
Posted April 2025
Introduction
I’ve been a big fan of FromSoftware ever since my first souls-like game back in 2017. After graduating university, I treated myself to a second hand PS4 and Bloodborne, which I had been dying to play for a longgg time.
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Since then, I’ve worked my way through their souls-like games and loved the experience. However, the more games FromSoftware releases, the more I wonder when certain systems will be improved upon or expanded. Many elements of these games have barely changed since the release of Demon’s Souls back in 2009.
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As people turn their sights to Elden Ring Nightreign and The Duskbloods, join me as I chat through everything I would like to see in From Software’s next big single player release.
The Big Things
So it’s no controversial statement to say that Elden Ring is a fantastic game with a dazzling open world, but it is also a game which stands on the shoulders of its predecessors. What I mean by this is that there is a lot of Demon’s Souls DNA in Elden Ring. I think that the core Souls formula could be expanded much further:
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Dynamic World
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My favourite element from the souls series is that when you die, the world carries on around you. You wake up at the bonfire, archstone, lantern, etc, and everything you just did still happened. Shortcuts you unlocked are now permanently open, bosses are defeated, all loot you have collected is yours to keep, even if you do loose your souls.
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What I would like to see is a further exploration of this element. Take the following example; early in Elden Ring you encounter a procession of soldiers led by two trolls pulling a caravan. You can attempt to take them down and grab the loot, but if you die, this procession helpfully resets back to the start of their route, so you get as many attempts as you like.
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Instead, imagine that the procession keeps moving towards its destination. In the game world, you died and have been revived but the rest of the world continued, and now, if you want to try again, you must take on the procession as they pass through fortified ruins with yet more soldiers. However, you can also wait for a better opportunity further down the road. The procession’s destination is Stormveil Castle armouries, so you can always get the loot, but now there is a sense of risk reward in attacking the procession early. You could lay traps to help ambush enemy groups like this, that could make the world feel more dynamic.
This vein of thought could be applied to all elements of the game to help create new and innovative experiences:
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If you nearly beat a boss, they could remain injured to make it easier if you attempt again straight away, then there would be a certain amount of in-game time it would require to for them to go back to full health. Skipping time at a checkpoint could revert the boss back to full health to satisfy hardcore players, while new and casual players get more of a helping hand.
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Inversely, some bosses could learn from the player and become better at evading certain attacks if you use the same strategy too often. This could make for some really challenging fights and discourage ‘cheesing’ the same attack types. This could also apply all enemies in the open world, in a system reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 5.
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Quests and decision could have more weight to them. Imagine you come across an NPC and agree to meet them in 3 in-game days as part of their questline. If you wait more than 3 days, you find the corpse of that NPC at the destination you were meant to meet them at, as they were overpowered by monsters without your help. This could also lead to some sneaky strategies where you deliberately fail questlines to get the NPC’s loots without having to kill them yourself.
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Weather and time-of-day could have a much bigger impact. Certain areas could be easier or more challenging at night, maybe the soldiers are sleeping in castle barracks so it is better to attack at night, but going into forests at night is dangerous as there are nocturnal predators on the prowl. For an example of weather affecting gameplay, you could gain an advantage against a fire based boss by fighting them in a storm.
FromSoftware have toyed with these elements in their Souls games. The moon phases in Bloodborne and the stages of invasion in Sekiro come to mind. Personally, I would like to see a further exploration into these ideas with dynamic systems, rather than a fixed progression.
​Ranged Combat​
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So this might be controversial but I find the ranged combat in all modern FromSoftware games to be extremely lacklustre, to the extent where every time I try a bow build or mage build, I always end up leaning towards melee combat by the end of my playthrough. I know that ranged builds are possible and indeed very popular, but I can’t help wishing that the ranged combat was fleshed out to the same extent that the melee combat is.
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At the time of writing, it seems that this issue of mine may already be being addressed. Bandai Namco are currently rolling out marketing for Elden Ring Nightreign, and the archer character has exactly what I’ve been wanting to see – an over the shoulder camera with a proper aiming reticule.
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To expand on this, I would like to see enemy weak points. Maybe you could trip or stagger an enemy with an arrow shot to the leg, or disarm them if you hit their weapon arm. Bloodborne has a great system where different limbs can be damaged to open the boss up to a visceral attack, and you can do this with ranged weapons if you’ve crafted your build the right way. This is the sort of thing I would like to see as standard going forward in From Software titles.
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All of this applies to magic as well. It boggles my mind that we still can’t manually aim spells in Elden Ring despite it being FromSoftware’s 6th game since Demon’s Souls. Again, being able to aim spells at specific targets and account for things like range and projectile speed would be a big upgrade to magic based combat, in my opinion of course. If paired with the dynamic world, players could even use the environment to their advantage – imagine luring a field boss to an arid plain and setting the grass on fire with a well-placed fireball!​
​Animations​
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FromSoftware games have so many excellent animations it would be hard to pick a favourite. However, one thing which really stood out to me when playing Shadow of the Erdtree was the disparity between the animations for the new weapon types and the classic weapon types that have been around since Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls.
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The old weapons have very static movesets, in that the player is mostly grounded in place whilst attacking. This fit the grounded style of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, but it feels out of place in Elden Ring where enemies have elaborate movesets and cover a lot more ground when attacking.
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The new weapons have distinctly fresh feeling animations where the player thrusts forward and generally moves around a lot more when attacking, mirroring the animation style of the enemies and bosses. Combine this with ashes of war such as ‘blind spot’ and I felt much more equipped to deal with the threats the game was throwing at me. This may be why I found the DLC much easier than Elden Ring base game, although I’m sure there are many other reasons.
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In summary, I think that if FromSoftware make another large fantasy RPG with weapons such as longswords, spears and the like, there should be new animations made for all weapon types. This may be controversial, as I know people feel attached to the old movesets, but having new movesets to learn feels so refreshing and adds a lot of novelty in a series which carries so much over game-to-game.
The Small Things
These are the smaller parts of these games which absolutely must change as far as I’m concerned. I think that for the most part people will agree with me on these points but I welcome any discussion or feedback in the comments!​
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Enemy Aggro Range
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I need to preface this section by stating that loads of games do this, so it is hardly an outdated mechanic and I even understand why it exists. However, it always seems so odd to me when I’m being chased down by some unimaginable horror, it suddenly stops and calmly walks back to it’s spawn point, once I back away a certain distance.
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Maybe this mechanic could be improved in future games. Certain enemies such as dogs and beasts could chase you much further as they are mindless animals. Then human enemies could retreat to a better position if you try and draw them away from their allies. Field bosses should have a much larger range and be able to follow you across the map. You could even lure them into a mob of enemies for some good old fashioned ‘monster infighting’.​​​
​​Enemies Hitting Through Walls
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This is an issue that has only grown worse over time as the series has added more ambitious and large-scale monsters for the player to fight. I hope that any experienced Souls players will instantly understand what I am talking about here.
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Quite simply, player attacks bounce off walls and surfaces, and almost all enemy attacks do not. This creates a mildly infuriating gameplay experience where you are often killed in a way that feels like the game is breaking.
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The standout example for me was when fought the grafted scion in Stormveil Castle. The room with the scion has a series of pillars by the main entrance. As the scion started attacking with wild movements, I naturally backed into the pillars thinking that the scion wouldn’t be able to reach me there. Of course – the attack went straight through the pillars and knocked me down, and following my roll away to the outside of the room, the scion hit me again and killed me through the castle wall. This is such a bizarrely consistent experience throughout the series and I really hope it changes in future From Software titles.
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It's important to note that in some instances, enemies do actually react to walls and surfaces. A great example is the troll near the boss room in Stormveil Castle. This guy (and all other trolls in the game) have a charge attack which you can bait into hitting a wall, which then in turn staggers the troll. Great stuff! All the more reason to hope to see this become the standard going forward. Oh, and whilst we’re at it, please please stop enemies from being able to attack the player through boss fog gates!
​​Grab Attacks and Mid-Air Attacks
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This one is a bit harder to pin down. Grab attacks have always felt off to me, it is hard to read when the attack is going to connect and even when sometimes it looks like you dodge, you still graze the boss hit box and get grabbed anyway. So it isn’t very clear cut, but I hope to see more visual clarity in grab attacks in the future. Maybe you could suffer a glancing hit and a small amount of damage if you don’t quite dodge the attack fully, rather than teleporting into the grab animation.
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Mid-air attacks have a similar issue where enemies defy gravity and move through the air to attack you. I understand that for boss fights this is done for dramatic effect, but for standard enemies and mini bosses it can feel a bit off to say the least. An example is the chained ogre in Sekiro who can do a drop-kick attack which tracks you. I feel like once the ogre’s feet leave ground you should be able to reposition yourself out of harm’s way if you’re quick enough. I’m sure there are many more examples of this but one that springs to mind is when I lost a huge amount of blood echoes in Bloodborne’s chalice dungeons due to a spider jumping at me and changing direction mid air to hit me after I dodged to the side.
Closing Thoughts
I want to end this by saying that I'm absolutely not demanding these changes and I'm very open to the series going in a different direction to this. The elements I've discussed, particularly around the dynamic world and death cycle, are simply what I would be very interested to see in future games. The smaller points I've raised are little irritants that I really hope to see FromSoftware address in future releases, especially enemies hitting through walls! Until next time...
Sources
All images taken on PlayStation 5 (Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Dark Souls Remastered, Demon's Souls Remake).