While no news of Dark Souls 4 has yet been officially released by FromSoftware, it’s hard to imagine that the developer will never make a fourth entry, especially since Hidetaka Miyazaki has explicitly stated that he isn’t done with the series. However, Dark Souls 3 practically perfected the formula, and both Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and the upcoming Elden Ring suggest that FromSoftware and its head Miyazaki are happy to take time and experiment with new and different ideas. If and when there is another Dark Souls game, it will still almost certainly look very different to the trilogy everyone knows and loves.
As the Souls-like genre has expanded, FromSoftware games have faced ever more competition from the likes of Code Vein and Nioh. While nothing has quite equaled FromSoftware’s excellent level design, others have managed to give Souls-like combat and sub-systems new spins that pose a serious threat considering FromSoftware’s adherence to tradition. Even FromSoftware itself must innovate on its original formula if it wants to keep current. Given the need for innovation in the genre and the lengthy time gap between Dark Souls 3 and a potential 4th game, Dark Souls 4 would almost certainly be a huge leap for the series.
The main reason that Dark Souls 4 would have to be a huge step in a new direction for the series is that Dark Souls 3 and its DLCs wrapped up the story of the Dark Souls trilogy in a nice tidy bow. The final DLC, The Ringed City, finishes the tale of the Ashen One at the end of the world, and even the base game hints at the end of the world cycle in most of its possible endings. Granted, Dark Souls‘ timeline is not a closed loop and there is plenty of room for speculation for any of the possible endings, but no matter what, it’s hard to imagine the story of Dark Souls 4 just picking up where 3 left off.
The world of Dark Souls is massive, though, and there’s no reason that another Dark Souls game wouldn’t take place in between the timelines of previous titles or simultaneously in totally different realms. Seeing areas that are only ever described through item descriptions or NPCs in person as a player would be a great experience, and going to totally new, unheard-of lands would be just as exciting. With that approach, new gameplay mechanics could be explained by the natural state of other lands, at the same time as new insights about the familiar story could be revealed.
Radically new gameplay mechanics are all but guaranteed for a prospective Dark Souls 4. Given that it will be a long time before another true Dark Souls game comes out, both the formula of the genre and video game technology itself will have changed significantly. Already, fast SSDs and other tech improvements are changing how developers will approach open worlds, load gates, and world design, which all have the potential to drastically affect any future FromSoftware games. Of course, the steady progress of the Souls-like formula may be even more significant.
Souls-likes are defined by visceral melee combat, RPG elements, and strong emphasis on the core tenets of environmental storytelling, circular level design, and challenging fights that force players to try the same fights over and over again to slowly learn the enemy’s patterns. That formula has proven so successful that games from Nioh and Remnant: From the Ashes to massive blockbusters like God of War and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order have all created their own take on certain elements of Souls-like gameplay. FromSoftware will have to learn from their competition to make Dark Souls 4 the huge hit its pedigree demands.
Just as Dark Souls itself is a series about repetition, cycles, and slow improvement through determination, FromSoftware seems to learn best from their own titles, not just their competition. The best example is the way that Bloodborne had a lot to do with the design of Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3‘s combat was faster, much closer to Bloodborne‘s pacing, and even many of its enemies and areas shared a slightly eldritch bent with the Lovecraftian horror that Bloodborne did so well.
On top of the clear influences of Bloodborne, the myriad of callbacks to Dark Souls 1 and 2 in weapons, NPCs, story elements, and area designs shows that FromSoftware’s approach to game design is to re-iterate the same core concepts over and over again until they are perfected. When Dark Souls 4 finally graces our game libraries, it will certainly have a lot to iterate on. Sekiro showed that FromSoftware is able to completely change up the traversal, artstyle, setting, and combat in its games while still maintaining the special touch that makes a FromSoftware game instantly recognizable.
From what is known, Elden Ring will also be a big departure from form for FromSoftware in the opposite direction, digging into heavy RPG mechanics and experimenting with a far larger and more open world. It’s to be expected that Dark Souls 4 would take successful elements from both Sekiro and Elden Ring, merging them into a new interpretation of the franchise. Even the Demon’s Souls remaster or future, unknown games could have some impact on what Dark Souls titles to come will play like.
Dark Souls fans are known to have a love for the tried and true mechanics of the series, and changes to the formula are typically met with skepticism. Even so, future Souls games should make major changes. Taking the story in new directions is a must in order for the series to stay interesting, and introducing new mechanics to Dark Souls will only serve to improve on an already great formula. Regardless, the wait for Dark Souls 4 will be a long one, and the absence of such a classic series for so long will only make the hearts of its fans grow fonder.
The status of Dark Souls 4 is currently unknown.
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