FromSoftware

FromSoftware, Inc. is a Japanese video game development and publishing company. It was founded in Tokyo on November 1, 1986 by Naotoshi Zin. The company started as a developer of business software, but eventually they would release their first game, King's Field, in 1994 for the PlayStation. Its success made FromSoftware shift their focus to fully working on games, with them producing two more King's Field games before creating the mecha combat series Armored Core (1997), one of their flagship franchises.

Okay, but how did they get to the Soulsborne games?

The company achieved breakout success in the 2010s with Demon's Souls (2009) and Dark Souls (2011), the latter being the first entry in a trilogy whose success led to the creation of a subgenre of action role-playing games known as - you guessed it - Soulslikes! As mentioned before, to differentiate between official FromSoftware titles and Soulslikes games in their images, official FromSoftware Souls games are called Soulsbornes. The Soulsborne games became one of FromSoftware's greatests successes, often cited as among the greatest video games of all time.

Hidetaka Miyazaki

Hidetaka Miyazaki, creator of the Dark Souls series, has served as FromSoftware's representative director and president since 2014 after Naotoshi Zin, with Zin remaining as an advisor. Despite his executive duties, Miyazaki directs and designs the majority of the company's games. After the success of the game's spiritual successor Dark Souls, released in 2011, Miyazaki was promoted to the position of company president in May 2014. It was considered unprecedented for a person to change careers in Japan and become company president within 10 years, attributing to Miyazaki's innate talent.