Ranking All Soulsborne Games From Worst To Best

This bleak and demanding cult classic is the one that started it all - but how does it hold up today?

Well, being the oldest in an ever-evolving franchise, it definitely shows its age. The controls are rusty, design flaws lead to plenty cheap deaths, and some mechanics just feel like plain trolling. In retrospect, it comes off like a rough-edged testing ground for its more refined spiritual sequel Dark Souls.

Still, there’s a power to this game that holds up incredibly well still; with the grey-skied kingdom of Boletaria haunting like a morose graveyard that's both sad and threatening. The grim atmosphere has never been bettered and the tone is so relentlessly doom-laden, it feels more terrifying than when the series went full horror with Bloodborne.

And who can fault nostalgia? Some of the series most unpredictable and memorable moments were birthed from this game - do you remember transversing the arduous, dragon scorched path through Boletaria Palace only to be greeted by the frightening frame of the Tower Knight? The result was pants wetting.

Certainly, aesthetic flaws and mechanics hamper the experience in the present day but this is still classic, innovating stuff regardless.