The first sequel has a bad reputation, and it's perhaps the most famously mismanaged of FromSoftware's projects. It started out far too technically ambitious (it famously had to eschew a complicated lighting system because it was too much for the seventh generation of video game consoles), and it's the only game in this list not directly helmed by series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki. It lost one of its directors partway through development, leaving co-director and longtime FromSoftware developer Yui Tanimura to not only direct the game himself, but salvage an incomplete project from whatever assets were built for the initial, graphics-intensive vision. You can feel the strain in "Dark Souls 2" as it literally stretches itself across many regions; it barely makes sense geographically. The game is choked with enemy encounters, pushing the boundaries of acceptable difficulty.

In "Elden Ring," most of the save sites and checkpoints are right before a boss encounter. Die to a challenging, insurmountable enemy? You're welcome to try again almost immediately. If you find that the enemy is too tough, or you're just not in the right frame of mind to challenge them, there's always the option to follow the above advice and simply move in another direction. If you want to revisit the boss, you can easily fast travel back to the spot and try again in less than a minute.

Hidetaka Miyazaki, president and game director of FromSoftware, is one of the most renowned game designers of his generation. The director of "Demon's Souls" (2009), "Dark Souls" (2011) and "Bloodborne" (2015) recently took the time to answer some questions about "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice," a game about a one-armed ninja, set for release on March 22. FromSoftware has a reputation for making challenging games. Has this reputation shaped the types of projects that the studio is willing to consider? How much flexibility is there to pursue more offbeat projects like the recent VR game "Déraciné"? Hidetaka Miyazaki: While I don't think it's fair to say there's zero influence, we as a studio don't tend to worry about such things.

It took me four tries to beat the first major enemy in our Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice ($60 preorder on Steam) demo. Just a slightly more powerful soldier than the mobs around him, a named Samurai General commanding nameless hordes. Time and time again I marched towards him though, having dispatched his troops, and was killed by the sweeping swings of his sword. As much as it's tempting to lump all of From Software's games into a "Souls-like" umbrella, the studio's proven skilled at reinventing what that term means--from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls, Dark Souls to Dark Souls III, and to the faster-paced fan favorite Bloodborne. Sekiro has plenty in common with its brethren, to say nothing of Team Ninja's Nioh, and yet it's also uniquely Sekiro, and that means going through the entire Souls learning process once again.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice solves Dark Souls' biggest problem.Credit: FromSoftware FromSoftware's upcoming video game diverges from its'Soulsborne' series in many ways according to everything we've seen and heard about the game so far. Instead, you'll play a ninja named Sekiro who is an established character in an established story. As with Bloodborne, combat will also see a number of significant changes, with an emphasis on vertical traversal vis-a-vis your Shinobi-arm, a prosthetic that includes a handy grappling hook. But perhaps the most significant change of all is the fact that this is an action-adventure game rather than an RPG. Of course, the Souls games were never heavy on roleplaying, but there was a pretty significant emphasis on RPG progression.

You're heading to the store to get an Xbox One right now, and need to know which games to get. Or you're at work or in school, daydreaming about what you want to play next. Or maybe you're suiting up for a battle in the console war, cinching on your armor and trying to remember which games will best help you make the argument for Microsoft's new console. We are here to help. In the first year of its life, the selection of games on Xbox One was a bit limited.