FromSoftware

In two thousand eleven, the gaming industry was racing to make games easier. Tutorials lasted thirty minutes. Difficulty settings came in four flavours. Invisible walls kept players from failing. FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki released Dark Souls, a game where the first enemy could kill you in two hits and nobody explained why. No difficulty slider. No waypoint marker. No mission log. Players died hundreds of times and restarted from checkpoints with all progress lost. Critics warned the audience would be too small. Dark Souls sold over thirty million copies. Elden Ring, released in twenty twenty two with the same punishing philosophy, sold twenty eight million in its first year.