The Dark Souls trilogy came to an end with the fourth instalment in the Souls series developed by From Software and Bluepoint Games. The notoriously difficult to complete games received both praise and flak for this element, and subsequent titles developed by From Software like Bloodborne also shared this concept of a very steep learning curve. In this article, we will be talking about the prospect of From Software developing the fourth mainline instalment to the Dark Souls franchise, and the fifth to the Souls series, presumably titled Dark Souls 4. Right, let’s get straight into it.
The first Dark Souls game served as a soft reboot of the Demon’s Souls game, which did not receive much mainstream media attention or success. The Dark Souls trilogy thus began, and its inception sparked the creation of two spin-off games that are brilliant in their own right, Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
One of the three directors of the Dark Souls games, Hidetaka Miyazaki was quoted in a 2015 interview saying, “I’m considering Dark Souls 3 to be the big closure on the series.”. While this may seem like the ultimate nail in the coffin for any hopes of a Dark Souls 4 ever coming out, it must be kept in mind that this interview is now six years ago, and that is plenty of time for any game developer to do a complete 360 in their plans.
In the same interview from 2015, Miyazaki also said, “I don’t think it’d be the right choice to continue indefinitely creating Souls and Bloodborne games.” and this should not come as a surprise, considering the fact that any game studio would want to move on from their biggest title to develop something new. Miyazaki believes in “aggressively creating new things”, and this is quite clear from their two latest titles, Sekiro and Elden Ring, which do share qualities with their previous games but also feature completely novel tropes.
Once work on Elden Ring is completed and it is released sometime around 2022, From Software will have the choice of going back on its word and creating a Dark Souls 4, or sticking to it and aggressively developing new content. Either way, as long as they are game of the year candidates (like usual), I think us fans will be up for it!
We hope you enjoyed this coverage of the Dark Souls series. Make sure to check out our other articles on Dead or Alive 7, Control 2, and the various Fortnite crossovers.
