Common Sense Media Review
Brilliant, extremely difficult, violent RPG in bleak world.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 18+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Demon's Souls
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 3 parent reviews
Based on 12 kid reviews
Kids say this game is an incredibly challenging experience that combines dark themes and elements of violence, making it more suitable for older players rather than children. While many praise its engaging gameplay and atmospheric design, they also caution about its steep difficulty and punishing mechanics which may frustrate less experienced gamers.
- challenging gameplay
- dark themes
- violence content
- suitable for older players
- frustration potential
- engaging atmosphere
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's It About?
In DEMON'S SOULS, a drab, encroaching fog full of soul-sucking demons threatens to make an utter wasteland of the already miserable Boletaria. It's a kingdom which has plunged into an eerie darkness because its greedy king awakened a seemingly unstoppable evil being. In this role playing game, you are the final hope for humanity, the hero who must fix this depressingly bleak world. But you will probably die, many times, while trying. If you're good enough, you'll discover the mystery of the Old One, the greedy king. Along the way, you'll fight gross things like insects with human faces, octopus men, grim reapers and giant, round masses made of human bodies.
Is It Any Good?
It's not easy. This extraordinary sleeper hit features a short, wham-bam tutorial and a challenging, dungeon crawler experience from the first fight onward. The steep difficulty level itself (you die miserably a lot), makes it an adults-only game and the massive amounts of sword killing, spurting blood, and fleshy gore seals its mature rating. (However, the bloodletting can be turned off.) Dying a lot yields a harder level when you try again. You can't even pause in this masochistic hardcore gamer's delight. It's ingenious nonetheless. Besides a massive world to explore and many classes of characters to try, the fascinating online mode lets previous players leave messages of warning to help for you. You can also beg others to help you defeat an ugly boss in this, the most difficult game ever created for the PS3. Bravo.
Online interaction: By joining you, friends can help you beat a boss online. Players can leave helpful messages. But people can also steal your game, too. There is no ability to text or use audio in the online mode, so there should be no fear of four letter words or worse.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
What do you think of this world? Is it too sad and forsaken? Or is it a step forward in games to see these deeply negative emotions?
Is it hard to deal with the constant dying of your character? Why or why not?
Do you wish the game saved automatically more often or do you like the challenge of getting to the end of the level and fighting the boss without save points?
Game Details
- Platform : PlayStation 3
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Available online
- Publisher : Atlus
- Release date : October 5, 2009
- Genre : Role-Playing
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate