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# I'm Just Not Into Souls Games, I'm Being Tested Enough As It Is
- URL: https://aftermath.site/i-hate-souls-games-bloodborne-elden-ring/
- Published: 2026-07-29T21:40:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-30T19:18:02.000Z
- Author: Luke Plunkett
- Tags: Hater Week, dark souls, elden ring, Video Games, Hater Week Stories

I am taking the opportunity this week to get something off my chest, something I haven’t been able (or willing) to share so publicly before: I hate *Souls* games. All of them. Even the ones that don’t have *Souls* in their name, because they still count. 

🤝

This is a companion piece to Chris' '[I Love Getting Demolished By Souls Games](https://aftermath.site/souls-games-punishment/)'

Whether it’s *Demon’s Souls* or its sequel, *Sekiro* or *Bloodborne* or *Elden Ring*, if there’s enough Miyazaki and unforgiving combat in it to warrant being called a *Souls* Game, get it out of my face. I don’t want anything to do with it. I would rather punch myself unconscious than subject myself to its trials. 

I understand this can be a sacrilegious thing to say as a games writer. It is generally held that these games are beloved by all, respected by consumer and critic alike, some of the all-time greats of the medium. I literally cannot think of anyone else I have been able to share my disdain with in professional (or even personal!) circles; everyone else is always “oh this boss was so hard” this and “I died 117 times before getting past this bit, it was AMAZING” that. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-29-085107.png)

Weirdos

I am a middle-aged man whose life currently consists of a succession of ordeals. I have seen my career [blown up twice](https://abcnews.com/Entertainment/history-peter-thiels-feud-gawker/story?id=39396073&ref=aftermath.site) through [no fault of my own](https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/univision-sells-gizmodo-onion-great-hill-1203183019/?ref=aftermath.site). I am trying to pay off a mortgage with declining income amid an inflationary crisis. To do this, I am working *three* jobs, one of which involves [begging strangers for money](https://aftermath.site/aftermath-subscription-sale-2/) on a weekly basis, and which for three 16-hour days of the week I have to fit around *another* job. I have two teenage kids.

The very last thing I want to do when I sit down at the end of a very long day is to suffer *more* trials. I do not want to have to act fast, to memorise patterns, to beat my head against a boss 99 times in the pursuit of fun. I need my personal time to *relax*, and these games are the opposite of relaxing! And I certainly don’t feel the need to prove anything to myself by beating a "hard" video game either, I am not 12 years old, I know where my strengths (and weaknesses!) are by now, both in gaming and as a person. I can see the appeal there for others, and will never try to tell *you* not to enjoy these games, but for me and my needs and my tastes, the premise of a game built around repeated failure *and* precise timing is torture.

⚔️

One year at TGS, I think it was 2011, I was lucky enough to get a personal walkthrough of the opening section of **Dark Souls II* by Hidetaka Miyazaki himself, and I hated it so much I asked to go and play **Armored Core* on the booth next to me instead.

I find this really interesting, though, because as someone who has played hundreds of video games over the last 20 years I can’t think of another major series where I am even remotely as repulsed as I am by *Souls* games. [I love *Yakuza*](https://aftermath.site/like-a-dragon-infinite-wealth-spoilers-kazuma-kiryu-ending/), and it’s got the same menu obsession and (in older titles at least) a more forgiving version of its punishing melee combat. I’ve [always found something to get me through a AAA shooter](https://aftermath.site/call-duty-modern-warfare-impressions/), I like driving cars, [I’ve played too many *FIFA* games](https://aftermath.site/ea-fc-madden-nba-2k-recycled-dogshit/) and even in the handful of Nintendo franchises I’ve bounced off (*Metroid*) there’s *something* to admire. I have even, gasp, found space in my heart to fall in love with a [Hideo Kojima game](https://aftermath.site/death-stranding-2-review/). Fast or slow, easy or hard, I have loved games (or found something to love within them) across the genre and difficulty spectrum. 

But *Souls* games? It’s like they’re precision-engineered to bounce right off me, in every way humanly possible. I hate *everything*, from the art design (yuck) to the combat to the relentless concentration required to do *anything* to the way that so many people are so slavishly in love with something I detest, a big “we love *Souls*” club that seems to include everyone I know except me and…

Ah. As I lean further back into the therapist’s couch I've conjured in my mind while writing this, maybe there's something in that. A lot of the games I truly love, [the ones with little guys and taking turns](https://aftermath.site/strategy-game-turn-based-tactics-movement/), are often relatively niche pursuits, never getting anywhere near the kind of popular critical mass *Souls* games enjoy, something everyone I know can talk about online or at a party. Maybe I don’t just hate the game, I hate the players as well, because everyone always seems to be having so much fun beating things and talking to friends about it and falling in love with a very particular kind of game and I’m left out because I just don’t feel the same way. Bah humbug, etc, and all that entails. 

Oh well! Fuck it. I still don’t like the games, I’m never going to pretend I do just so I can be part of some online discourse. If that means living the rest of my days as a *Souls* hater, forever on the outside looking in (on the internet), then so be it!

[![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/07/Untitled-3-1.jpg)](https://aftermath.site/tag/hater-week/) 

****It's Hater Week here on Aftermath**. This week we’re letting the hate flow through us by examining what it means to be a hater (and… a lover?), venting about some of our biggest pet peeves in games and life, and giving others a space to do the same.

[Read More ](https://aftermath.site/tag/hater-week/)