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[LectureMaster]

FromSoftware Soulslikes May Want to Keep an Eye on One Doom: The Dark Ages Feature

Difficulty has been a hot topic surrounding FromSoftware for quite some time, and Doom: The Dark Ages might actually have the answer.

gamerant.com

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FromSoftware games are infamously challenging. In a FromSoft action-RPG, it's not just bosses that will one-shot players, it's regular enemies too, and that high level of challenge has caused a bit of a stir in recent years. But Doom: The Dark Ages, surprisingly, might have the key to solving this ongoing FromSoftware difficulty debate.

First announced back at Xbox's June 2024 Showcase, Doom: The Dark Ages is the next mainline entry in the long-running Sci-Fi shooter franchise, and this time, things are getting a little more fantastical. During the recent Xbox Developer Direct, id Software shed some more light on Doom: The Dark Ages' combat, story, and exploration, providing plenty of gameplay footage for each aspect. id Software also showcased a new custom difficulty setting for Doom: The Dark Ages, which could be something for FromSoftware to consider in the future.

FromSoftware Games Need to Strike an Impossible Balance​

While FromSoftware games have been challenging since the studio's debut (1994's King's Field), a discussion surrounding that high level of challenge has continued to grow louder over the last decade, usually resurfacing with the launch of a new FromSoftware action-RPG. On one side of the fence, some FromSoft fans believe that the high level of challenge is an inherent part of the experience, and that removing it would remove a core part of the developer's unique identity.

While that might be true, it's undeniable that FromSoftware's higher level of difficulty can often be a major barrier to entry for newcomers. Contrary to some fans' beliefs, this isn't always a "skill issue." There are many gamers out there who experience physical disabilities that affect their reaction timing or ability to perceive minute changes in enemy attack patterns. These gamers have frequently discussed how FromSoftware's games are simply inaccessible to them due to the lack of any difficulty options. This is where Doom: The Dark Ages' difficulty customization could offer a solution.

How Doom: The Dark Ages' Difficulty System Could Work in a FromSoftware Game​

Though it's certainly not the first AAA game to offer custom difficulty options, Doom: The Dark Ages' mechanics do share some clear similarities with FromSoftware's action-RPGs, making a direct comparison between them appropriate. Doom: The Dark Ages' custom difficulty settings will allow the player to manually adjust individual components of the game, such as enemy aggression, projectile speed, parry windows, damage to the player, and general game speed. Those who don't want to adjust any of these values can simply choose one of Doom: The Dark Ages' preset difficulty options, just as they would in any previous entry in the franchise.

This might be a good way for future FromSoftware games to strike a balance between the two aforementioned schools of thought. The players who want to experience FromSoftware's intended experience could simply play the game like normal, while those who want to adapt the difficulty to best suit their needs or desires could. The introduction of accessibility options doesn't mean it would inherently detract from the experience for some fans, or even affect their experience at all.

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[Futaleufu]

If you think the game is too hard grind or summon

 

[Guiding Moonlight]

I would rather FROM crash and burn than cave to gaming "journalists" and others calling for this shit.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Sliders are terrible imho

Shows a lack of conviction in a baseline level of difficulty that was intentionally designed for

 

[yogaflame]

Well there are times I feel that fromsoftware games are so difficult to the point of very masochistic if you play it over and over again, ( Sekiro and darksouls is ouch and it hurts in a good way )but that is its charm. But that option is okay but I hope those who still remains in fromsoftware standard difficulty will be greatly rewarded like for example trophies or even Platinum trophy.

 

[od-chan]

No, for fuck's sake we've been over this. Fucking journos on their neverending bullshit quest to show what great people they are because they're "opposing" "gatekeeping".

Something like this might work for Doom, or shooters in general, because it's more about slaughtering hordes of enemies. Similiarly this might work for something like Dynasty Warriors, yes.

I guess these are the same people that most likely applaud Nintendo for their "Super Guide" hand holding gimmick for children. Go play with Legos or something.

 

[Ridicululzz]

I think the difficulty is fine. Elden Ring especially made a lot of the bosses very easy to do if you just summoned.

 

[chakadave]

I think the difficulty is fine. Elden Ring especially made a lot of the bosses very easy to do if you just summoned.

Yep. Or change up to a cheese tactic. Usually they have weaknesses. You can exploit

 

[od-chan]

I can't put quotes into edits so I need to follow up

Doom: The Dark Ages' mechanics do share some clear similarities with FromSoftware's action-RPGs, making a direct comparison between them appropriate

Whoever writes this bullshit is probably too retarded to even figure out Legos.

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

This tired conversation again? Souls faithful, you know what to do

 

[Varteras]

 

[kikkis]

I don't see why it can't have an easy mode where player health is just multiplied by 4x. It doesn't take away dev time whatsover

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

 

[HRK69]

I don't see why it can't have an easy mode where player health is just multiplied by 4x. It doesn't take away dev time whatsover

 

[kazuyamishima]

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Rise of the Ronin showed how difficulty levels on a Souls style game isn’t blasphemous imo. Even on Easy it’s not a walk in the park.

 

[BlownUpRich]

Absolute buffoonery! Souls games are designed this way in order for the formula to work, you have to explore & collect stuff in order to stand against the game's hardships, what do they mean by "difficulty sliders?" Being able to survive 1000 hits from bosses? Being able to kill all bosses with 1 hit? Where's the fun & accomplishment in that? What's the point of leveling up or getting Shadowtree fragments (like in SOTE DLC) if that was the case? That would destroy the RPG mechanics that the game has. This would go completely against the philosophy that Hidetaka Miyazaki had in his mind, which is 'overcoming hardships' & 'Accomplishment.'

Do they also want to modify the bosses' movesets? These movesets are designed with the game's mechanics in mind, these things cannot be altered or else they'll break the game's fundamentals, all of this just to try & please certain noob ass game journos trying to get their virtue signaling everyway they can. Absolutely disgusting. Fuck them.

 

[Danjin44]

 

[Heisenberg007]

Sure.

Having more accessibility or difficulty options never hurt anyone.

 

[adamsapple]

Sure.

Having more accessibility or difficulty options never hurt anyone.

And options doesn't necessary mean it's there for making it easier.

You can make Dark Ages 150% or 200% faster like DMC's Turbo Mode for an added hectic challenge.

Will I ever do that? Fuck no, but the option is there for people who want to.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

It was the only thing I pretty much hated from that gameplay reveal of The Dark Ages.

Do I now have to balance the game difficulty myself as well? Is it Doom DIY or something? Maybe just give me access to the source code directly…

No more need to overcome any challenge, just lower the projectile speed, increase parry window and player damage output a bit on your 3rd boss try.

‘A Doom for everyone’. Fuck off with that bullshit. If John Romero was dead he would be rolling in his grave.

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[Futaleufu]

IIRC Dark Souls 2 removed some enemies if you died too often in the same area. I think that was a terrible idea.

 

[Radical_3d]

Spoiler: Hearing intensifies

 

[a'la mode]

I like and enjoy video games a lot, and I want everyone else to enjoy video games too. Difficulty/accessibility options allowing other people to enjoy the same game on their terms is not taking anything away from my enjoyment of the video game. Main point of gaming is to have a good time, so as long as you're having fun, you do you!

 

[Jigsaah]

No.

 

[March Climber]

IIRC Dark Souls 2 removed some enemies if you died too often in the same area. I think that was a terrible idea.

The game had a ton of other frustrating issues (like hit detection) to which it didn’t matter too much, and the feature itself ended up much, much lower on the totem pole of that game’s problems.

 

[March Climber]

The easy solution here would be to lock the trophies/achievements behind the game’s set difficulty. Any changes to said difficulty locks you out of earning them.

That way the people who love to brag can still brag about how they beat the game on the intended difficulty.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Madden's had endless sliders for decades now yeah? (seeing as they had them when I last played and I think the last copy of Madden I got had Brett Favre on the cover)

Or they could just focus on making the games they want and those games might not be for everyone in the world to enjoy from start to finish with zero effort

 

[Cakeboxer]

Doesn't hurt anyone, in some games i have to use easymode for some bosses as well. But they could disable achievments/trophies if you use it to make the game easier and add some for making it harder so the butthurt elitists can feel better.

 

[poppabk]

I liked all the options in Indiana Jones so you could decide exactly how much hand holding you wanted and how immersive an experience you wanted. Like you can have objective markers on your screen or not, you can have guard detection indicators etc.
Don't really play From games but I bet there are things that people would turn off if they could to give themselves the experience they want.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Doom is unconventional title.

It will require players to parry and melee in an fps game.

They are dipping their toes in this, hence its needed. Nobody knows if general fps players will be able to pull off parries or not.

But I would have preferred a toggle to make parries easy for them instead of fine tuning.

With Souls games, its well established what players skill levels are, stuff they tolerate etc. It doesn’t need this experimentation.

 

[ChoosableOne]

I would prefer if they offered such options rather than designing the game around summons, mimic tear, and magic. As someone who doesn't like using these, I struggled quite a lot in Elden Ring, unlike the older ones.

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

I liked all the options in Indiana Jones so you could decide exactly how much hand holding you wanted and how immersive an experience you wanted. Like you can have objective markers on your screen or not, you can have guard detection indicators etc.
Don't really play From games but I bet there are things that people would turn off if they could to give themselves the experience they want.

They already don't have that kind of stuff, and you can also disable the HUD if you want to. The game isn't really playable without it though imo.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Yawn

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

The games not even out yet?

 

[hemo memo]

I feel like the game's challenge is deeply tied to the pride and identity of some Souls fans. The feedback on threads like this is consistently bizarre.

 

[bitbydeath]

They should make it an option.
After you beat the game.

 

[Gilgalaad]

I don’t think Fromsoft needs some journalist advice…

 

[vkbest]

Sure.

Having more accessibility or difficulty options never hurt anyone.

The most games are hurt by difficulty options because they are not balanced making the game too much easy or hard in some point

 

[Duchess]

Well, here's the thing.

You've just spent £70 on a game, and you're unable to get anywhere because you're finding it too difficult. It would be good to be able to lower the difficulty, so that you can enjoy it.

On the other hand, it can be a tough ask to have devs and designers compromise their vision of how the game should play by introducing a one-hit kill cheat mode, so players can rinse the entire thing in a few hours.

Perhaps the solution is to have some sort of cheat mode for single player, that can be purchases separately. Mind, that only tempts some companies (coughEAcough) to artificially raise the difficulty.

 

[Knightime_X]

They really dont have to.
Just put it on pc and watch ppl force difficulty settings anyways.

 

[The artful mincer]

Do it!

I just want to see the mayem that would unfold across the internet! That would be more fun than any game FROM could release at this point!

 

[Heisenberg007]

Well, here's the thing.

You've just spent £70 on a game, and you're unable to get anywhere because you're finding it too difficult. It would be good to be able to lower the difficulty, so that you can enjoy it.

On the other hand, it can be a tough ask to have devs and designers compromise their vision of how the game should play by introducing a one-hit kill cheat mode, so players can rinse the entire thing in a few hours.

Perhaps the solution is to have some sort of cheat mode for single player, that can be purchases separately. Mind, that only tempts some companies (coughEAcough) to artificially raise the difficulty.

I don't think that's applicable in a FromSoft game. In a complex RPG like BG3, I can see that problem.

FromSoft could easily increase damage, stamina, etc. on an "easier" difficulty option to make the game more accessible for less hardcore players. Or they could also increase player health or reduce the damage they take per hit.

This won't compromise their vision of the game on 'normal' difficulty. After all, normal difficulties are what devs intended the game to play like. And it wouldn't be tough for them either.

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

Sliders are terrible imho

Shows a lack of conviction in a baseline level of difficulty that was intentionally designed for

Exactly. I genuinely don't understand why id included sliders. I don't have a single issue with difficulty modes - they're great in a game like Doom. But sliders just seem fucking stupid. I much preferred the optional cheat codes they had in the previous games after you completed each level.

 

[Kronark]

I feel like the game's challenge is deeply tied to the pride and identity of some Souls fans. The feedback on threads like this is consistently bizarre.

I think if I were to make a more rational pitch for why the Souls games are fine as is... If not better off as is,

The problem with selectable difficulty is that players don't ever know what the right difficulty is for them until the game is over if ever... You might think that sounds like a ridiculous statement because of course people know themselves but think of how many games have you hit start at a title screen and select a difficulty before you've even controlled the character. Is hard mode going to let me have the most fun or feel the most satisfied? Is easy mode going to let me have the most fun? It's hard to judge that without experiencing each mode in full in isolation.

Players might get frustrated in their first hour of a game and think a game is too hard before they've become accustomed to the controls, gameplay, moves, weapons, and tools available to them. There is going to be a natural learning curve to everything and a bunch of people might simply tone down the experience because of this learning process and never bother to ramp it up. Hell they might even just select easy off the menu before even trying. All of a sudden they're not playing the game as designed anymore. The challenge intended by the developer is missing, knowledge checks are suddenly non-lethal, and players can just tank through the game instead of engaging with the mechanics. These players would probably walk away from that experience thinking it was kind of boring. There was no engagement with the game systems, there was no struggle, there was no accomplishment or feeling of victory...

The souls games heavily focus on challenge and knowledge acquisition. The minute you let players 4x their health pool, all of that goes away. You no longer have the fear created when you're down to your last estus flask and you haven't seen a bonfire in 20 minutes. You're not looking over your shoulder at every corner or overlook for an attacker. The entire mood / atmosphere / experience of the game changes.

I would counter argue to the easy mode people that the Souls games aren't really that hard, they're just a little challenging. There are plenty of natural assistance systems in the game as is (Summons, Co-op, etc). It just feels like a lot of whining about the games comes from people who either aren't frequent gamers or can't be bothered to engage, try, and learn. They want the game to just let them win. There's also something to be said that a game designed for everyone is a game designed for no one. The Souls games are loved and praised for having their rough edges. They would not be the same games without them. The idea that everything that makes these games special needs to be smoothed away for general audience is kind of distasteful and frankly if Demon Souls / Dark Souls had an easy mode off the title screen I don't think the franchise would be where it is today. I think it would have been a niche franchise at best.

If Dark Souls isn't a game for someone because they think it's too challenging, that's fine, not every game needs to be for everyone. I think the world where players who start up Dark Souls, select easy mode when they're capable of the normal mode, and end having a boring experience is a far worse world.

 

[Skifi28]

As it has been said time and again, souls game do have difficulty options. They're just built in the games themselves. You can trivialise most content using the intended systems but no, little Timmy won't be happy unless there is an "ez mode" selectable from the main menu.

 

[cormack12]

I think it only needs a practise mode tbh. The trash mobs can be annoying if you don't pay attention, and the cheap kills can get tiresome. But by far the biggest turnoff is trying to learn boss sequences while knowing you are only ever 3/4 hits from having to start again. It becomes way too tedious.

PC players have trainers and all kinds of 'tools' to get gud but if you're playing as intended you want to feel like you're still moving forward in a reasonable time. Not spend the 2 hours you have doing death runs to a boss, ascertaining which moves can be blocked, parried or rolled, only to hit a second and in some cases an even more challenging third phase.

Thankfully, FROM seem to be getting some shit after ER and even moreso after the terrible bosses in SotE, even from long time hardcores. And the camera really needs some TLC still.

 

[Gojiira]

Nope. Not every game has to be for everyone. Difficulty clearly does not hinder From Softwares success either given how well Elden Ring sold.

 

[Elitro]

Not fan of difficulty options. I understand its purpose, and almost all games have in a way or another. Why try to force it in one of the last games without it? Have you considered that the fact that perhaps the reason FromSoft has so much success is because its games are not like everyone's else's?