It has received critical acclaim, with its high level of difficulty being among its most discussed aspects, while the first Dark Souls is often cited as one of the greatest games of all time.

Other FromSoftware games, including Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring, share several related concepts and led to the creation of the Soulslike subgenre.

The games take place within the land of Lordran, where the player's character fights against knights, dragons, phantoms, demons, and other monstrous or supernatural entities.

The Dark Souls games are played in a third-person perspective, and focus on exploring interconnected environments while fighting enemies with weapons and magic.

Bonfires serve as a checkpoint within the series, restoring all health and other critical resources when used, but also respawning most enemies and obstacles, making repeated trips back to safety untenable for forward progress.

[7] In 2012, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition was released for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, featuring the base game and the Artorias of the Abyss downloadable content.

The plot of Dark Souls is primarily told through environmental details, in-game item flavor text, and dialogue with non-playable characters (NPCs).

In 2017, the complete version containing the base game and both expansions (Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City) was released, under the title Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition.

It sold over 10 million copies by 2020, making it the fastest-selling game in Bandai Namco's history at the time[23][24] (until the record was beaten by Elden Ring).

[25] In 2015, Miyazaki said that Dark Souls III would likely be the last of the series, with FromSoftware choosing to move onto new games of unrelated IPs in the future.

[29][30] In February 2017, music from the series by Motoi Sakuraba was performed by a live orchestra at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris.

[32] In Japan, a box set containing the enhanced versions of all three games for the PlayStation 4, the soundtracks for each, bookends, artwork prints, and dictionaries detailing every in-game item was released on May 24, 2018.

"[37] It also drew inspiration from video games such as Ico,[38][39] The Legend of Zelda,[37] and FromSoftware's Otogi: Myth of Demons,[40] as well as manga such as Berserk, Saint Seiya and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[41] Unlike its successors, Demon's Souls uses a central hub system known as the "Nexus" where players can level up, repair equipment, or buy certain items, before venturing into one of the five connected worlds.

The gameplay involves a character-creation system and emphasizes gathering loot through combat with enemies in a non-linear series of varied locations.

After FromSoft extended the server's lifecycle past the original 2011 shutdown date, the multiplayer component was finally taken offline in early 2018.

[68] Dark Souls III broke sales records upon release, selling over three million copies worldwide by May 2016 and was Bandai Namco's fastest-selling game until being surpassed by Elden Ring in 2022.