2016, Jonathan Glover, "Dark Souls 3", CWU Observer (Central Washington University), 28 April 2016 - 4 May 2016, page 8:
There's a moment early in “Dark Souls 3”—after you've killed the first real boss (Soulsborne fans will know what I mean by this)—when you have to walk up to a cliff edge in order to be transported to the next area.
2019, "Introduction", in Narrative Design and Authorship in Bloodborne: An Analysis of the Horror Videogame (ed. Matthew Wilhelm Kapell), page 4:
As the director of each of the Soulsborne games, Miyazaki is a strong influence on all aspects of the final product, including visual design, gameplay, and narrative content.
2019, Ollie Hind, "Casting the Runes", MCV, September 2019, page 68:
Take the Soulsborne games; in most games, dying to the same boss over and over, sometimes for multiple hours, would be considered frustrating and the difficulty would quickly be rebalanced. But FromSoftware has made this its identity. The feeling of satisfaction from overcoming these challenges is something gamers haver flocked to and the titles became huge successes.
2019, Stacy Henley, "Indie Corner: Raindancer", The Courier (Newcastle University), 18 November 2019, page 30:
Of the whole Soulsborne series, it bears the strongest resemblance to Dark Souls II.
2020, "Star_U_Poo", quoted in Alexander Jenkins, "Lighting the Bonfire: The Role of Online Fan Community Discourse and Collaboration in Dark Souls 3, What Is a Game?: Essays on the Nature of Videogames (eds. Gaines S. Hubbell & Matthew Wilhelm Kapell), page 137:
I love every bit of the SoulsBorne games but my absolute favorite aspects are PVP and Lore. I'm gonna upvote a good lore post whenever I see one but my friend is more inclined to upvote an "I did it!" kind of post as the challenge of PVE is prevalent in his Soulsborne experience.
2020, World-Builders on World-Building: An Exploration of Subcreation (ed. Mark J.P. Wolf), unnumbered page:
These are all seemingly trivial pieces of world-building, but the Soulsborne worlds are built out of hundreds or even thousands of theses pieces, all of which are designed to show the existence of a world specifically designed to be lived in by the creatures we've seen living in it.
2020, James Palmer, "Why did UK games sales drop in 2019?", The Boar (University of Warwick), 13 February 2022, page 32:
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was created by FromSoftware, the developers behind the Soulsborne titles.
2020, James Hamilton, "Hollow Knight Video Game Review", TechNews (Illinois Institute of Technology), 28 April 2020, page 13:
I would go so far as to argue that a few of the bosses are even more difficult than any Soulsborne bosses. And like "Dark Souls," death leaves a shade that contains all your money, one which you must find to get it back.
2021, Joseph Knoop, "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice", PC Gamer (UK), March 2021, page 110:
Remnants are perhaps the most Soulsborne-like addition à la bloodstains, allowing you to see a 30-second recording of another player's escapades.
2021, Bruno Citoni, "The difficult problem of the difficulty problem", The Glasgow Guardian (University of Glasgow), 25 March 2021, page 20:
I personally love the trial-and-error of Soulsborne games where you are expected to learn enemy placement, movesets and abilities.
2021, M. Deitz, "Fighting against your death in 'Death's Door'", 29 July 2021, The Michigan Daily (University of Michigan), page 9:
Sure, “Death's Door” does little to hide its love for both the Zelda and Soulsborne franchises, cramming in dense lore to creepy dungeons filled with puzzles and enemies galore, but it manages to take the best part of these series and form something wholly unique.
2022, "Evolve or die", Edge, February 2022, page 63:
Yet there is so much complexity to metabolise in the Soulsborne games that it's possible for enthusiasts to devote years of their lives to mining them for raw material and not exhaust them – or the curiosity of their audiences.
2022, Tom Butt & Reiss Mason, "The games we're excited to play in 2022", Forge Press (University of Sheffield), 7 February 2022, page 29:
If you love Game of Thrones, forgot the final season, and enjoy the Soulsborne series, have I got news for you.
2022, Dillon O'Toole, "Yet Another Brick Wall", Binghampton Review (Binghamton University), 10 March 2022, page 7:
Speaking of brick walls behind brick walls, behind yet another brick wall, FromSoftware just released Elden Ring, yet another game within the Soulsborne series of games known for its punishing difficulty.
Proper noun: "(fandom slang, video games, countable) any one of the video games in this series"[edit]
2020, Cameron Kunzelman, "How we deal with dark souls: The aesthetic category as a method", in Hybrid Play: Crossing Boundaries in Game Design, Players Identities and Play Spaces (eds. Adriana de Souza e Silva & Ragan Glover-Rijkse), unnumbered page:
What aesthetic categories offer us as a method for game studies is a way of drawing these relations. The soulsborne genre, its reviewers, its discourse, and its players and their assumptions and assertions about the game are not mere additional details that inform our ideas about the text.
2020, "Nioh 2: We all need samurai to depend on", PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), February 2020, page 41:
But Nioh 2 improves not just on the first game – which was in itself excellent, earning 9/10 in OPM #134 – but on the soulsborne genre in general.
2020, "Have Your Say: Demon's Soul", PlayStation Official Magazine, October 2020, page 27:
Because FromSoftware's Demon's Souls is the granddaddy of the soulsborne genre, and one of the PlayStation 3's overlooked classics.
2020, "Feel The Power", PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), November 2020, page 55:
But that game is Demon's Souls, the hard-as-a-nailed-gauntlet FromSoftware game that began the whole soulsborne subgenre.
2022, Felix Phommachanh, "Impression on Elden Ring: Maidenless but still having fun", The Captains Log (Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA), 16 March 2022, page 6:
From the developers of the Soulsborne genre, FromSoftware released their newest game to the genre called Elden Ring.
2022, Ryan O'Connor, "TN2's Games To Watch 2022", TN2 (Trinity College Dublin), Spring 2022, page 22:
The promise of an open-world Soulsborne-style game, if executed correctly, is likely to refresh both the Soulsborne genre and the tired and beaten open-world formula, making Elden Ring one of our most anticipated titles of 2022.
2022, Gabrielle Cabello Torres, "From The International: Video Games From Different Cultures", Mace & Crown (Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA), Spring 2022, page 36:
“Blasphemous” is a masterfully crafted game that would entice hardcore fans of Soulsborne and Metroidvania games.
2022, Cameron Rasmusson, "Elden Ring recaptures magic of video game discovery", Reader, 29 December 2022, page 17:
The Soulsborne formula has been imitated countless times but mastered by few apart from FromSoftware, the original pioneers.
Noun: "(fandom slang, video games, countable) an individual game of this genre"[edit]
2018, "Team Ninja's Nioh 2 is back for more", PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), August 2018, page 11 (image caption):
Do you have room for another Soulsborne in your life?
2020, Cameron Kunzelman, "How we deal with dark souls: The aesthetic category as a method", in Hybrid Play: Crossing Boundaries in Game Design, Players Identities and Play Spaces (eds. Adriana de Souza e Silva & Ragan Glover-Rijkse), unnumbered page:
Diagrammatics allows us to properly think about how something like a “soulsborne” can be created: It is a set of mechanics, modes of storytelling, and player expectations that branch out and proliferate from the original object.
2020, "Godfall", PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), May 2020, page 47:
The shiniest soulsborne you'll ever play
2020, "Godfall", PlayStation Official Magazine (UK), December 2020, page 56:
Lee confirms it offers the challenge of a soulsborne but with a greater level of flexibility in how you approach that challenge.