What was King’s Field?

FromSoftware’s first game: a first-person dungeon, on a brand-new console, that refused to hurry.

King’s Field was released in Japan on December 16, 1994, days after the PlayStation itself launched there, and it was a strange launch title: a slow, fully 3D, first-person dungeon crawler in which Jean Alfred Forrester searches a dead king’s underground graveyard for his missing father. It sold well enough in Japan to turn a business-software company into a game studio. It was also never released outside Japan; English-speaking players met the series through its sequel, and the original waited until a fan translation in 2006.

The formula it fixed, labyrinthine spaces, sparse characters, difficulty as atmosphere, a world explained in fragments, is the one the studio’s later work is praised for inventing. It did not invent it in 2009. It remembered it.

King’s Field (1994) Japanese PlayStation cover — **KING’S FIELD · 1994** The Japanese cover of King’s Field, FromSoftware’s first game, released for the PlayStation on December 16, 1994 — the original the West never received under that number.

THE SERIES

Four dungeons and a long tail

King’s Field II · 1995

The sequel reached North America and Europe in 1996, retitled simply King’s Field, with no number. The renumbering starts here: Japan’s II is the West’s I, and Japan’s III (1996) is the West’s II. Collectors check the disc, never the title.

King’s Field IV · 2001

The PlayStation 2 entry, sold in North America as King’s Field: The Ancient City. Prince Devian carries a cursed idol back to the Land of Disaster: the series’ largest, bleakest map.

Sword of Moonlight · 2000

A Windows construction kit that let players build their own King’s Field games, shipped with a full remake of the first game inside it. FromSoftware was handing players its tools a decade before that was fashionable.

The Dark Side Box · 2007

For the company’s 20th anniversary, a Japanese box set reissued all four main games with six soundtrack discs, a map of Verdite, and bonuses, the series’ monument edition, and a Japan-only object.

What was King’s Field?

THE SERIES

THE FIRST WORD