The historic grandfather of 3D shooters, paving the way for a genre that would come to dominate the industry. I remember playing this with my brother, and he’d always make it harder by refusing to shoot the dogs.

All of the learnings from DS through BB are here, and as a final instalment to the franchise is a remarkably rounded love letter to its fans. Almost certainly the most accessible Souls game.

A brutal and fun return to form for the juggernaut OG of the genre. Couldn’t have come at a better time when shooters were all starting to homogenise again. Great soundtrack too.

Incredibly well designed and delivers on everything it sets out to do: emotional story, a focus on exploration and discovery, and basic combat.

A fitting and challenging musically violent rhythm game with gorgeous visual styling from one half of band Lightning Bolt & friends.

Seemingly, the beginning of the end for the franchise. All but gone are a lot of the brilliant and deep RPG elements that made these games great, in favour of simplification.

An absolute classic and one of the best point-n-click adventure games of all time. A great remaster of Tim Schafer at his peak.

Another soulslike with potential but not enough to stand on its own. People call this “clunky souls” but forget it was released before DS3, and that DS1/2 were also very slow.