In the sense of “do they require lightning fast reflexes or mastering a deep combat system”, no not at all. They mostly require paying attention and learning.

Souls games are literally just rhythm games. 90% of boss fights are watching for when the enemy commits to moving forward and pressing the roll button, once they stop for a bit, give em a tickle. Repeat until god is dead.

The game is learning.

There’s some reaction element, but the core loop is learning how to be optimally positioned to use your weapon, how to optimally pace your attacks, when your attacks leave you vulnerable. Then once you get that, you do the same with enemies. You learn where they hit hardest, what you can avoid, what their tells are, and when they’re vulnerable.

If you’re willing to learn and approach the game with learning as a goal, and understanding that you’ll die as part of that learning process, they’re great, because they do a really good job of creating difficulty in a way that almost all damage is predictable and avoidable if you know what you’re looking at and approach it the right way.

If you just want to button mash you’re going to have a bad time.

I feel like, if you’re going to play a souls game for the first time you should play Elden Ring, because it’s the kind of game that’s only as hard as you want it to be. Elden Ring is in this interesting spot of being open world, meaning that if a particular boss or area is too challenging, you can fuck off and do something else for a bit, then come back when you’re better leveled/better geared/more practiced etc. I feel like you don’t really get this with other souls games, which are more linear in their structure.

that said, I don’t think any souls game is really an insurmountable challenge, especially Bloodborne. sure, you might suck when you first start it, but once you get the hang of the combat, dodging, etc you should be fine.

Definitely play it. Just remember that “You Died” doesn’t equal failure and dying a lot doesn’t mean you’re bad at the game. Dying lots is a core mechanic of the game.

I’m of the opinion that the difficulty level isn’t that bad, and I’m not saying this in a gatekeepy “git gud” kind of way. I enjoy these games because they feel fair, and whenever I have been struggling disproportionately, it’s either been because I was somewhere beyond my current level (especially in open world games like Elden Ring), or I was doing something “wrong” (like stubbornly using my preferred weapon even though I knew a quirk of the boss meant it was suboptimal)

If the game feels like it’s being unfair to you, take a step back and rethink your approach. Try a different weapon or strategy (this might mean having to go to an easier area to practice the new weapon). Look through your items to see if you have anything that might help (including potentially helpful lore in the item descriptions). If you’re not sure what a thing does, try using it and see — the game won’t explain things explicitly because it wants players to find out in play.

If you like the look of Bloodborne, 100% give it a go — even if I weren’t already a fan of Fromsoft’s games, I’d enjoy Bloodborne for the impeccable aesthetic.

No, they have a learning curve but that’s about it. They are not unfair or over difficult like some of those meme games that were popular a while ago

It’s just as hard as any other game on the hardest difficulty. The only difference is there is no difficulty setting.

Try it out. You don’t have to be amazingly good, you just have to be persistent and learn from your mistakes.

The souls games, and Bloodborne in particular, can be hard and frustrating.

But with the right mindset everyone can beat them.
You don’t need perfect reflexes, you don’t need to learn super complex combos.

You do need to realize that (at least in the beginning) you are not super strong compared to the enemies you encounter.

If you start the game for the first time and run into a big group of enemies, you WILL die.
Then you learn to not do that and try to aggro one enemy at a time.

This goes for many more situations.
At first you won’t know how to approach some of them and you will die. And sometimes you will die twice and lose your hard earned resources.

This can be frustrating. And sometimes the camera was a bit buggy or your dodge didn’t work the way you thought it would.
But most of the time you could have done something different to avoid death.

And FromSoftware is quite good in giving hints what that is.
If you die in similar situations, there is usually a way to approach them differently.
That also goes for bosses.

And then there is the big open secret, you can simply level a bit more than absolutely necessarily to make souls games significantly easier.

If you only need to hit the boss 20 times instead of 30 and you survive his 3 hit combo and can heal back up instead of dropping dead after 2 hits it becomes way more manageable.

This is not necessary, people beat those games with base level running around naked with giant clubs, but not in their first run.
Use items, upgrade your weapon, level up your character, and the game will not be so grim.

But be prepared to not be able to rush through all the content without being challenged or using your brain.

Oh and if you choose to play Bloodborne (my first souls like and still one of my favorite games of all times) just enjoy yourself.
Every weapon is 100% viable.
For the first run the Saw Cleaver (R1-L1-L1) and the Axe (long R2 in two-handed mode) are slightly easier than the pimp cane, but again, every weapon is viable.

Just have fun with it, the games are classics for a reason.

I would say that a lot of these unforgiving action RPGs are complete-able and enjoyable by most everyone, but I should give a caution that if you’re disabled in the hands, things will be substantially less forgiving.

I’ve got hemiplegic cerebral palsy from a pair of strokes, and as a result, the right side of my body, specifically my fine motor control of the right side of my body, is utter garbage. I can’t get through Bloodborne or most Souls games. The exception was Elden Ring, because it made ranged combat viable in such a way that any need for twitchy gameplay was substantially reduced.

Bloodborne is among the most difficult in the genre, and if you’re looking to broach this sort of game, I’d recommend Elden Ring first. It’s got the same learning aspects, but it allows for more creativity and thought in the moment.

They require a different mindset and approach than many other games. You can view it as a test of will: your victory is inevitable since every time you die, you respawn and have learned a little. The game tries to make you quit, not by being unfair but by punishing laziness and corner cutting. The rewarding feeling you get when you finally, initially through stubborness and eventually by skill beat a difficult boss is immense. The videos of people easily dodging attacks and showing restraint in their attacks beat difficult bosses - that will be you eventually. Just accept that dying and trying again is an integral part of the experience, it does not mean that you are bad at the game. There can not be a feeling of accomplishment and achievement if there is no resistance, no? Go and have fun! And remember, there is no “wrong way” to play - all the mechanics in the games are there for a reason, so use them!

My wife finished it. It was too gray and red for me to enjoy.

And yes it is hard but rewarding.

Souls games are for masochists. If that’s not your thing, steer clear.

Tbh, no. I suck at like 90% of games, just genuinely not good at them. I excel in soulslikes, you really won’t know how difficult it is for you until you try it. I think the games are built in a way where, should you use all the games mechanics, they are relatively easy but if you don’t use all the mechanics they can get hard

When I was a kid, Tomb Raider was a pretty easy game, except this one part that required absolutely perfect timing for a some running and jumping between platforms for a bonus item.

At the start, I could make it to the next platform. After a while, I could do 2. Eventually, I got 3. After a long, long time, I finally managed to string all of them together… And screwed up the very last one.

Here’s the thing, though. I got it on the very next attempt. I had learned that sequence so well that it actually wasn’t hard any more, even though it was nearly impossible for me at the start.

Afterwards, my parents (who watched the whole thing) told me they had never seen me focus on something so intently for so long and they couldn’t believe I managed it.

That’s what souls games are, from start to finish. Every single encounter is basically impossible at first, until you die and learn enough to get through it. But you start from the beginning of the game every freaking time.

I tapped out because I wasn’t motivated .

It’s old school difficulty, and I am no longer that kid who ‘has got to beat the next level’