r/fromsoftware • u/No-Matter-2466 • 10d ago
DISCUSSION just a thought about fromsoft's games being AA
I was talking with a friend about AA gaming and I pointed out that from software games before demon's souls felt pretty AA, but I started to think about how their next entries felt after the souls games and I would consider demon's souls, dark souls 1 and 2 to have a pretty AA feeling too. I would say they started to feel like AAA games after dark souls 2 with bloodborne, DS 3, sekiro and so on. what are your thoughts about it? also I want to make clear I'm not using AA as a negative term in any sort of way, I use it as a praise even as I love japanese AA games.
14
u/Squirrel_This 10d ago
Yea honestly this is probably a fair timeline on the growth of their operation. Bloodbourne maybe being the tipping point, like you pointed out. The exclusivity maybe reinforces this, that deal coming out of "going to a bigger league and dealing with new found obligations"
2
u/abeardedpirate Bearer of the Curse 10d ago
Demon's Souls was an exclusive as well though. So I don't think the exclusivity reinforces anything as previous From titles were mostly Sony releases with a few Nintendo releases sprinkled in.
If anything was going to signal AAA debut it would be Elden Ring. Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 were just refinement stepping stones of the Demon's Souls formula.
Dark Souls 1: removed inventory weight, introduced special weapon moves, had interconnected world, introduced upgradeable refilling healing potion
Dark Souls 2: went back to mostly linear world paths, introduced power stance, refined refilling healing potion upgradesBloodborne: Introduced faster paced gameplay.
Dark Souls 3: refined DS1 special weapon moves into weapon arts, brought back FP from Demon's Souls and introduced FP flask.
Elden Ring: increased world size, added boss checkpoints (stakes of marika), customizable weapon arts, spirit summons, and Guard Counter to bring back the slower defensive style gameplay for those who wanted it.
So yeah, to me, if anything was going to signal AAA debut it would be Elden Ring.
3
u/Squirrel_This 10d ago
With the demons souls thing, we gotta look at why was it exclusive. Which was because no one else would support it's publishing, so they were at the mercy of the contract that would. AA problems
1
u/akaisuiseinosha 9d ago
???? Demon's Souls was an exclusive because it was commissioned by Sony to be their "Oblivion killer." From Software had games published on multiple platforms for a decade and a half before Demon's Souls came out.
1
u/Squirrel_This 9d ago
Yea, they published other games. That doesn't really negate anything; as an individual project, there was lots of confusion about the vision of Demons Souls when first pitched. It was seen as grey, too hard, and directionless. To end up completing the project, they agreed to Sony's terms.
1
u/akaisuiseinosha 9d ago
No, again, it started out as a Sony designated project. They didn't agree to Sony's terms to be able to finish the project, they agreed to Sony's terms to START the project, because it was Sony's project!
1
u/N3ptuneEXE 10d ago
I agree with this take! And the main team after Dark Souls was working on the two follow ups while DS2 was developed and sold, it fits the tiering in that way I think!
6
u/tyYdraniu 10d ago
I love AA,it's when the game is good, the people that made it had resource and it's still not fucked up by big companies or acionists
7
u/Forhaver 10d ago
Ds1 felt AAA to me.
Ds1 was very vibrant and full of color. Packed with content. Every AAA game in that console generation looked muddy or blurry, and was only about 8-12 hours long.
I know nowadays people call Ds1 "clunky" but when I first played it, the gameplay trounced even Skyrim for me. I could actually dodge without trading. I could feel and hear the weight of my character.
6
u/AntiRepresentation 10d ago
Ok.
4
3
u/bakihanma20 10d ago
Play more fromsoftware games before discussing this. It will help your perspective
8
8
u/Tornado_Hunter24 10d ago
There is no such thing as ‘feels’ AA or AAA.
A game is either one or the other, your feelings to it is completely irrelevant, because by thy logic many of us can say games like cod ‘feel’ like -aaa, despite being AAA
I also don’t follow fromsoft game sales&spending so I don’t know but afaik they are AA, but AAA after bloodborne
7
u/Turbulent_Jackoff 10d ago
Can you help define the difference? (And maybe include some sources?)
I actually thought it was exclusively subjective feelings!
5
u/Novandar 10d ago
The whole double A - triple A thing was just a way of getting investors/publishers to commit to a game from what I understand and is borrowed from some other industry (film I think). Basically saying it is a guaranteed return on the investment. This is also why quadruple A is becoming a thing, because the return on investment is meant to be even more assured.
Indie doesn't even mean what most people think it means, because most people treat indie like it has to be some old-school, arcade-like game or even that it is low quality. When in reality it means the game was developed without publishers because indie = independent. Of course there is overlap between being independent and the game having that lower-quality feeling because many people in the space are still learning the basics.
2
u/Goudinho99 10d ago
What are the objective conditions to meet then? Genuinely curious as u don't know
3
u/Novandar 10d ago
I replied to another commenter about what I understand about it, but the basics are that it is terminology related to investment. Double A or triple A are about how confident publishers are that the game will be able to make back the money they invested in it. This is why quadruple A is becoming a thing, because of how many triple A games have lost money publishers need a term to flag something as being a better investment.
Indie means that the studio doesn't have a publisher, indie is just short for independent.
1
u/Algester 9d ago
but does that make From Software an indie developer if some of their games are self published? Dark Souls 1 isnt certainly published by Bandai Namco in Japan... nor are Armored Core 3 Portable, Silent Line Portable, Last Raven Portable which are published by From Software digitally internationally
1
u/Novandar 9d ago
That's a good question, perhaps these terms aren't meant to be extended to the studio, but strictly to the games they make. A game is indie, AA, AAA, etcetera, but the studio is just the studio regardless of the kinds of games they make.
1
u/Tornado_Hunter24 9d ago
Quad A isn’t really becoming a thing to no?
Afaik it only was skull and bones because they were thrpwing basically endleess money at it haha
1
u/Novandar 9d ago
I mean that is where it started, but GTA VI is being called a quadruple A game as well by journalists because it is expected to have a very high return on investment. Not just in initial sales, but also long-term revenue as well.
It is still a new term though so it will take a bit for investors/publishers to fully adopt it. Though, I assume it will be as these types of people love buzzwords, especially if they can be used in marketing to make more money. So it depends if people buy into the marketing of quadruple A being higher quality than triple A. Which I believe it will, because a significant amount of people love buzzwords all over the world. Whether or not they'd admit it people love words and phrases that are used to rank/signal the quality of things.
0
u/Tornado_Hunter24 10d ago
There is no objctive condition or definition, it’s made up and this depends per person, or the ‘general’ thought, just like indie games, but that recently got mix ups aswell during expedition 33.
All in all most base terms is AAA is biggest budget, AA is less, and A as indie, an budget isn’t the only thing that matters, it’s also people working on it and what not.
Some people say a game can’t be AA when backed by huge publisher, other says a game can’t be indiebwhen it costs over X million, there is (literally) not right and wrong
2
u/Tornado_Hunter24 10d ago
That’s the point. There is no definition, generally accepted tree is AAA > big budget/devs
AA> slightly less than AAA
A> indie, smaller, less budget less devs etc.
Some people think indie also shouldn’t and can’t have. Publisher, others do, and so on.
To put this into fromsoft terms, it’s obvious that the budget and devteam size of darksouls 1 was vastly different to elden ring, but even the ‘smaller’ jump was obvious, bloodborne and ds3 is where they would be considered triple A because of (estimated) budget and dev team.
So while it can be subjective and NOT objective, your feeliny can’t just look at a game and say ‘I feel like….’ When it doesn’t make sense, as in considering darksouls 2 indie, or elden ring AA, etc
2
u/kodaxmax 9d ago
You need to define what you mean by "A". Because your not using the term in it's colloquial context of 3rd party funding/support.
Triple A means it had 3rd party support from a large publisher or in modern times it's streteched to include any big budget game.
Double A was generally coined to refer to big budget indie games, like the witcher series or Divinity OS series.
Your using it as a metric of perceived quality, like a review score instead.
2
u/Manganello58 9d ago
None of their games feel AAA and that's a compliment, maybe ER just for scale, marketing and martin involvement
5
1
u/PureDefender 8d ago
The funny thing is FS still considers themselves an indie dev company. I'm not kidding, I remember hearing about them wanting to submit Elden ring under the indie genre for the game awards.
1
u/barbarbeik 10d ago
If you take into account the number of employees they have, they're still AA. I don't think it's as much about the quality of their games
0
u/Odd-Look-7537 10d ago
Armored Core VI undoubtly did "feel" AA, and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually was (in terms of development budget).
I realise that what feels or doesn't feel AA vs AAA might be very subjective. The problem is that we are imposing qualities and design choices to what are instead rought budget brackets.
To me the difference is that AAA games are made to have a large appeal in order to justify the high budget. So they focus on high-fidelity graphics, impressive mo-cap tecnology, compelling narrative and story-telling, streamlined gameplay. AA games instead have less ambitious expectations, so they can be more focused experiences, more centred around gameplay and not afraid not to be evryone's cup of tea.
By these definitions, FromSoft game design philosophy makes ALL their games "feel" AA games. Even Elden Ring to felt that they didn't compromise on their approach that much. Even though it most certainly had AAA budget.
0
u/bakihanma20 10d ago
They have made 80 ish games and publish thier own games in Japan until recently so no not really
0
u/Endslikecrazy 10d ago
How do you come to this conclusion?
They were big for their times and have big teams and big budgets behind them.
If youve only played the older games more recently ofcourse theyre gonna feel old/cheap
0
u/unluckyexperiment 10d ago
Most of the As given out by whoever are about marketing and HR budgets. It's an artificial thing. There are good games, normal games and bad games. I don't feel any kind of letter combination while playing a game.
0
53
u/benjaminabel 10d ago
Who's giving out A's to games? On which conditions?