When someone says ‘FromSoftware’, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? I imagine most, if not all people, would have pretty much the exact same thoughts - the rage-inducingly difficult Soulsborne games, and all the creepy, eldritch horror enemies that dwell within them.
However, it seems that the studio could be making a pretty big change soon. As reported by IGN, FromSoftware’s parent company, the Kadokawa Corporation, has revealed in their latest financial earnings report that they may be using the studio to develop new games based on anime and manga.
While you're here, be sure to take a look at everyone's new favourite FromSoftware game completely ruined (or arguably improved) by mods.
Confused? Let’s rewind for a bit of context. The Kadokawa Corporation is a massive Japanese media conglomerate, who own a tonne of different companies, including some who focus on publishing (primarily books, manga, and visual media magazines), film (mainly Japanese feature films, international films, and anime), and more (thanks, Wikipedia).
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Just to name a few examples, the corporation owns brands who published the Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion manga series, and the Sword Art Online and Angel Beats anime series.
Now, getting back to the matter at hand, this new earnings report revealed that they plan on “utilising game adaptation resources within the group to create the next big hit from original works that are suited to a video game adaptation”. FromSoftware was just one of the “game adaptation resources” listed - Spike Chunsoft (who developed and published the Danganronpa series) and Gotcha Gotcha Games (the team behind RPG Maker) were also mentioned.
Unfortunately, that’s as far as the information goes at the minute - there were no specific anime or manga titles mentioned as examples. However, the corporation spans so many companies who’ve published a huge amount of different series, the options are almost endless. Well, not really, but there’s a lot of them.
It’s certainly interesting to imagine what FromSoftware could do with an anime series, especially if they kept that same level of mind-bending difficulty we’ve all come to know and love. We’ll just have to watch this space.
Topics: Fromsoftware, Anime, Elden Ring