Dark Souls Franchise Hits 40 Million Sales, Proving We All Love to Suffer
Bandai Namco's new financial report confirms their second-biggest franchise is the one that kicks us in the teeth.
Praise the Sun. Bandai Namco just dropped its latest financial report, and it looks like our collective suffering has been very profitable.
The Dark Souls series has officially topped 39.71 million copies sold, let's just call it 40 million, as the report only covers the period up to March 2025. It’s a massive milestone for a series whose last mainline game came out in 2016.
The Genre We Love to Hate
This officially makes the franchise Bandai Namco's second-highest-selling series of all time, trailing only the 60-million-unit behemoth, Tekken.
It's wild to think that a notoriously difficult, cryptic, and depressing game about dying over and over is one of the pillars of a major publisher. It just proves we all secretly love being miserable.
While Demon's Souls technically kicked off the genre in 2009, Dark Souls was the game that brought FromSoftware's unique brand of punishment to the masses and made it a global phenomenon.
The Elden Ring Effect
Let's be real: Elden Ring was a gateway drug.
The success of Elden Ring has clearly had a massive knock-on effect, sending a whole new generation of gamers back to the archives to find their next hit of that sweet, sweet FromSoftware pain.
The source article I read claims that "Souls games somewhat fell off after the last Dark Souls," which is an insane take. But it's undeniable that Elden Ring's mega-success created a new wave of interest that helped push the original trilogy over this 40-million mark.
Don't Hold Your Breath for More
For all the fans (new and old) holding out hope, I've got bad news. FromSoftware has been pretty clear that the story is done. Dark Souls 3 was the conclusion.
So, don't expect a Dark Souls 4 announcement anytime soon. We'll all just have to settle for whatever new, beautiful, and infuriating world they decide to build next.