Hail Mary Plays: Video Game Companies That Came Back From Failure With One Hit Title

From Software

If you asked most From Software fans today whether they’ve played an Armored Core, Tenchu, or, heck, a King’s Field game, you’d likely be met with a plain “no”.

Well, it’s no surprise. When it comes to prominent Japanese developers, FromSoftware didn’t use to stand with the greats, and not even by a longshot. Many of the company’s games had cult followings, but they were otherwise unheard of in the larger gaming space. Plus, these games were known to be janky and awkward to control, but not without value and merit. Remember Ninja Blade? Or even the two Otogi games on Xbox?

FromSoftware’s fortunes would slowly begin to shift as it began working on Demon’s Souls. A medieval fantasy RPG with tedious checkpoints, unfairly tough enemies, and a system where losing EXP became possible – it was a unique idea that seemed the antithesis of expected game design. Then Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida had even deemed the game to be “unbelievably bad” prior to its release.

Sure enough, the game was riddled with frame rate problems, glitches, and balancing issues. Yet, it developed into a cult classic for its harsh world, intriguing lore, and community-driven online features – aspects which would see FromSoftware hit the ground running with their subsequent releases of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and so on.

With Elden Ring launching to over 12 million sales, FromSoftware is no longer the niche developer it once was. To think this is all thanks to a revolutionary gameplay formula that, funny enough, only a quirky company like FromSoftware could have concocted.

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