It’s about where gaming was at when Dark Souls came out. Ghosts n Goblins and Castlevania were old hat by then, gamers had been conditioned and became accustomed to thorough tutorials, handholding, objective markers, the whole thing by then. The way Dark Souls made a huge point of not holding your hand was as much a surprising success as it was a tribute to those games of old.
It showed that the gaming community at large still wanted that, it wasn’t dead by choice, it was designed out of the popular by large companies catering to the lowest common denominator, and having a studio be brave enough to take that chance was not something you could take for granted at the time.
There is no reason it shouldn’t work. Castlevania and Ghosts N Goblins succeeded before it.
It’s about where gaming was at when Dark Souls came out. Ghosts n Goblins and Castlevania were old hat by then, gamers had been conditioned and became accustomed to thorough tutorials, handholding, objective markers, the whole thing by then. The way Dark Souls made a huge point of not holding your hand was as much a surprising success as it was a tribute to those games of old.
It showed that the gaming community at large still wanted that, it wasn’t dead by choice, it was designed out of the popular by large companies catering to the lowest common denominator, and having a studio be brave enough to take that chance was not something you could take for granted at the time.