Any Creatives get jealous of FromSoft games, or pure awe-inspired by their genius?

Incoming essay so read at your own digression.

Hello everyone, like you I am a huge fan of Souls games and the mind of Hidetaka Miyazaki, but as an aspiring Creative myself, I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at the sheer genius at their creations. To preface, I’ve only played Elden Ring, Sekiro, and am currently nose deep in a Bloodborne playthrough. I haven’t even touched their foundational masterpieces, although I will eventually. Nevertheless, I played Elden Ring practically by mistake and have yet to look back. By mistake, I mean a friend recommended me the game and I bought it without doing any research because I value his opinion enough to trust his judgement. I was not aware that Elden Ring was associated with Souls games, nor was FromSoftware even on my radar for gaming developers (I was also an extremely casual gamer and didn’t really get into gaming until I was in college). I had an inkling of an idea associated to Souls game which was that they were hard and because I sucked at video games I never entertained them, but I also never even knew how well regarded they were. Nevertheless, I knew, or thought I knew, that Souls games would be inaccessible to a scrub like myself so I never bothered with any Souls games solely because they here ‘hard’. When Sekiro came out I didn’t even know it was a Souls game made by FromSoft but I thought it looked cool but because I had heard it was hard I never gave it a second look. A lot of this is rooted in my own self doubt. I think I can’t do something therefore I can’t do it. But When I booted up Elden Ring I was immediately impressed by the graphics and art design, as well as how smooth it felt. I remember thinking it might be too hard but thanks to my blind following to having a great friend, I spent $60 on a game I knew nothing about. Long story short, after being insulted by Varre, bamboozled by Tree Sentinel, jumped by a dragon, and teleported to Caelid, I thought I had wasted $60.

But of course, I couldn’t let $60 go to waste and because of how Elden Ring is designed, you are compelled to continue. Castle Stormveil is one of the first things you see after entering Limgrave so naturally the player says to themself something along the lines of: wow that’s a dope castle I gotta go check that out. Of course it’s not so simple because there’s so much to do in Limgrave. I spent much of my opening hours in Elden Ring killing those ghoul bats or whatever they’re called as well as basic enemies (the ones who slowly prowl the lands). Just killing them made me feel better about myself and pushed me to keep itching my way through the game. I had friends give me advice. My first felled boss was in a cave and after that I had to keep going. I had to keep leveling up and exact my revenge on Agheel dragon and the Tree Sentinel which I finally did. It was a rewarding experience, but of course the first main boss was Margit. At the time I needed summons and NPC Rogier to help me and even then the fight was tough. Despite my lack of skill I refused to level up so much that the fight would be made easier. I wanted to beat Margit at a relatively similar level as other players did even if I was using summons (this is not meant to instigate an argument on summons). When I finally defeated Margit it was one of the greatest moments in all of my gaming experiences and genuinely reframed how I saw myself. Because I assumed I couldn’t do something I never bothered with it, but I persevered and did it anyway. I’m sure it’s ridiculous that it took a video game for me to see this about myself but it did.

In short, I ended up getting the Elden Ring platinum and it is now tied with RDR2 as my favorite game of all time. Soon after defeating Margit I began imposing challenges on myself which was to not use summons as I didn’t want to “lesser the challenge”. My experience with Elden Ring was eye opening. It lead me back to Sekiro, a game I would not have otherwise played. The combat is incredible and I didn’t find it terribly difficult thanks to my hard-nosed habits in Elden Ring. But it was definitely still hard, as these games tend to be. I also achieved the Sekiro platinum and loved that. Now I’m playing Bloodborne and once again find myself addicted to a FromSoft game.

To circle back to my title question, I don’t think many people could create something that could be something so compelling to someone who innately feels is inaccessible to them, yet perseveres anyway. A lot of this is because Miyazaki’s philosophy of forcing the player to overcome overwhelming challenges to achieve great triumph thereby creating a microcosm for life itself insists upon players to keep going even in the face of aforementioned overwhelming odds. I have a great appreciation for Miyazaki and his vision to make difficult games. As someone who sucks at games, and definitely couldn’t have played these games 5 years ago, I respect him for sticking to his guns. Miyazaki by no means owes me a great gaming experience just because I’m not good enough.

When it comes to Bloodborne it has all of the great mechanical aspects that make FromSoft games so great, but for me, the most intriguing aspect is the story. I honestly have no idea what the story is so I might be undermining myself, but the fact that Bloodborne effectively switches genres midway through is mind blowing. I don’t know what other story does that and I feel as if only the medium of video games could achieve something like that which is why I love video games so much for their ability to tell intriguing and immersive stories over a more prolonged period of time than say a movie. Needless to say there is a lot about FromSoft games that go into them that makes them masterpieces. There’s a lot I don’t know about game design, coding, gameplay, and just everything that goes into making a video game that I know nothing about. But I can appreciate it’s an art form that when done properly, video games are as much an art form as a beautiful sculpture or a masterpiece Oscar winning film.

As an aspiring Creative myself, I doubt I’ll ever make something as impactful as the games FromSoftware makes but their finger on the pulse of humanity—that being our strive to overcome obstacles and find our purposes in life—is what compels us to play their games and become addicted. It’s hard not to feel a pang of jealousy at FromSoftware’s genius. I’ve done nothing to show myself as anyone that matters but if anyone has any inkling of creativity I think they will appreciate FromSoft games from a purely creative standpoint. It makes me wish I knew literally anything about creating video games, but at most I could only write for them, and even then I don’t know if I’m qualified for that. Video games give me a great appreciation for coding and the minute details that goes into making them. FromSoft games are a thing of genius and I’m lucky that there are still a lot I get to experience after Bloodborne.

Anyway, if you read this thanks. If you’re a Creative in any way, shape or form, I hope you find it in yourself to bring forth those creations to life. And if you are an aspiring video game developer, I wish you luck, and hope you you are also able to create an astounding video game on par with FromSoft games.

TLDR: Sorry for the rant, I just adore FromSoft games and have great admiration for them as an art form. I think any aspiring artist who appreciates video games as an art form will feel jealous of Miyazaki’s genius. Nevertheless a lot of the people on this sub are probably very intelligent and creative themselves so I hope you guys go on to make amazing content for random strangers to enjoy, and even feel compelled to play if they’ve otherwise not thought themselves to enjoy whatever content it is that you’ve made.