If FromSoftware has demonstrated anything about its game design in the last decade-and-a-half it’s that it has a bottomless well of ingenuity when it comes to designing characters, enemies, and bosses in the darkest corners of science-fiction and fantasy. Between the progenitorDemon’s Soulsand theupcomingElden Ring Nightrein, FromSoftware has never faltered in its ability to produce alluring and nightmarish monstrosities, and a lot of the time these designs have happened to mold themselves brilliantly after a particular animal, reptile, or insectoid.
FromSoftware has dabbled heavily in spiders via bosses such asDemon’s Souls’ Armored Spider,Dark Souls’ Quelaag, andDark Souls 2’s Freja. Spiders have been featured as ordinary enemies in FromSoftware’s action-RPGs, too, even inBloodborne, andElden Ring’s co-op spin-off,Nightrein, has teased more to come. But whileElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreetraded spiders for horrifically unique arachnids,Elden Ringand its DLC are far more ingrained in reptile and serpent imagery. FollowingSekiro: Shadows Die Twicein this regard, FromSoftware has outdone itself with its scariest motif yet when it comes to snakes.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Brought Beady-Eyed Snakes into FromSoftware’s Fantastical Picture
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twiceis one of FromSoftware’s rarest outings. Fleeing from FromSoftware’s tried-and-true RPG genre trappings,Sekirois an action-adventure game with a scripted protagonist, multiple skill trees instead of customizable stats, and a single sword supplemented by different abilities and prosthetic tools.
Likewise, being set in a fictional Sengoku-period Japan,Sekirotackles much different imagery and atmospheres in its snowy slopes and massive castles. Still,Sekiroimmerses itself deeply within creative and ghastly enemy designs between Long Arm Centipede Sen-Un, Headless, and the Demon of Hatred. Two identical, recurring foes that aren’t technically bosses in the traditional sense, however, areSekiro’s Great Serpents.
Behaving more like environmental obstacles than actual bosses, Great Serpents pose a huge threat as colossal beings that Wolf can’t hope to slay like he would any ordinary enemy.
Nonetheless, having these enormous, coiling, eggshell-white serpent gods belong toSekiro’s world stamps an indelible signature on the game apart from all of the ancillary snake motif imagery seen elsewhere. Thesnake motif andSekiroare now synonymouswith the former complementing the latter and, while that could have sustainedSekiroalone, FromSoftware decided to double down on snakes when it came toElden Ringand its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree Have Allowed FromSoftware’s Haunting Snake Motif to Persist
Indeed, the most enduring snake imagery found inElden Ringis undoubtedlyVolcano Manor’s God-Devouring Serpent/Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, whereas inElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreeit is Shadow Keep’s Messmer the Impaler/Base Serpent Messmer. It can be easy to overlook this recurring motif due to how sprawling and diverseElden Ring’s dark fantasy influences are between the Lands Between and the Land of Shadow, but it’s interesting and of note that FromSoftware would immediately follow a tremendous snake presence inSekiro: Shadows Die Twicewith a similarly comparable one inElden Ring.
In particular, Messmer—amandatory boss tucked away inElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree—was the crowning achievement of Shadow of the Erdtree’s pre-release marketing, complete with a statue that players could purchase, and therefore its snake imagery has been displayed with a wholehearted flourish.
FromSoftware has never been a studio whose formulas, while systematic and patternable at times, have ever been wholly repetitive or predictable. As such, it’s impossible to estimate whether its burgeoning snake motif will carry over intoNightrein, much less whatever brand-new action-RPG IP it happens to develop and add to its growing catalog of community-dubbed ‘Soulsborne’ titles.
