FromSoftware today is known as one of the best game-developing studios present in the industry. Releases such as the Dark Souls trilogy with Hidetaka Miyazaki as well as the Armoured Core franchise have helped the studio catapult itself into the world of fame, but it was not always smooth sailing for the developing house, especially when the world was stepping into the new millennia.
The era of the 2000s is without a doubt one of the most progressive times for the gaming industry. Ranging from never-before-seen games with 3d graphics to newer and more powerful consoles, the form of media boomed during the period. And while FromSoftware finally got to show itself off in 2009 with Demon Souls, there was another title released 9 years before that remains forgotten history.
Evergrace – One Of The Rare Times FromSoftware Failed To Deliver
Released in the year 2000, Evergrace was an action-role-playing game, launched specifically on PlayStation 2. It is one of the few less-talked-about titles released from the studio as franchises like Elden Ring and Dark Souls often manage to steal the spotlight for themselves.
The game was initially praised for some of its mechanics at the time, including the paper-doll system, where the clothes and armor assigned to your character remained visible to the player’s naked eye. Unfortunately, this was not enough for Evergrace to take off, as it received much criticism from the likes of GameSpot, mentioning how the game contained ‘dated visuals‘, and became laggy during battles.
The fundamentals of the stated title remained similar to many other titles that gamers have witnessed up until now. It featured two different protagonists having two distinct storylines that exist independently. It was not until 2005, that the iconic director Hidetaka Miyazaki joined the studio and worked on his first project, Armored Core: Last Reven, finally bringing some attention to the FromSoftware.
How Hidetaka Miyazaki Helped Set FromSoftware On The Right Path
Hidetaka Miyazaki as a member of the studio was able to climb ranks swiftly, becoming the president in 2014, near the release of Dark Souls 2. It was ultimately his efforts and the introduction of the Soulslike genre with Demon’s Souls in 2009 that FromSoftware finally started getting much more recognition and began earning the big bucks.
Currently, the whole gaming community patiently awaits the release of Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which is the studio’s next project and is supposedly the largest extension that FromSoftware has made to date.
