Soulslike: Who is the Most Powerful Protagonist in FromSoftware?

The protagonists of FromSoftware's soulslike games grapple with powerful cosmic forces, concepts of reality, and extradimensional beings. With each battle, the enemies become more challenging, not only in terms of gameplay but also in terms of lore.

In the Souls trilogy (quadrilogy if we count Demon's Souls) there are infernal demons, immortal gods, and living darkness itself. In Sekiro and Bloodborne there are unparalleled warriors, horrifying beasts, and entities that exist beyond human comprehension.

To face such powerful enemies, the protagonist in each of these games is forced to wield powers on a similar scale. Legendary weapons, magical amulets, and even concepts like life and death.

In this article, we analyze each of the main characters in these stories and compare them to choose who is the most powerful protagonist.

Honorable Mention: Nightfarers

Before addressing the list of facts, let's talk about the protagonists of Elden Ring: Nightreign, the characters known as Nightfarers. Each represents a class with its own abilities and combat style, and although Nightreign isn't actually a soulslike, the game still retains many elements from its predecessors, drawing mainly from sources like the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring.

Here, the protagonists confront a cosmic force that commands an eternal night and manifests itself through various enemies, both known and unknown. Each nightfarer is a kind of extradimensional traveler, summoned to the Round Table to defend the advance of the night.

The Slayer of Demons

In Demon's Souls, the protagonist must stop an ancient demon from covering the world in a fog and causing its destruction. The enemies here are very similar to what we see in Dark Souls, but the power scale seems smaller than what's presented later.

Dark Souls Trilogy

In Dark Souls, the power level increases significantly, and this progression becomes even more evident from one chapter to the next in the trilogy.

Chosen Undead

The protagonist of the first Dark Souls must confront Gwyn and other primordial gods of the universe, beings capable of destroying immortal dragons, creating life forms using the power of the First Flame, and controlling the dead.

The greatest example of power here is, without a doubt, Manus, the Father of the Abyss. A being who’s probably the Pygmy who inherited the Dark Soul at the beginning of time and who became a creature very reminiscent of the enemies in Bloodborne. Manus is so powerful that he was able to drag the protagonist through space-time and yet is defeated by the Chosen Undead.

Bearer of the Curse

In Dark Souls 2, the Bearer of the Curse embarks on a journey to recover the souls of the original lords, needing to defeat fragments of Manus himself, the lord of giants, ancient dragons, and various other enemies.

There's also a greater depth here regarding the undead and the First Flame, as well as their connection to the cycle of light and darkness that plagues the world. Still, Bearer of the Curse doesn't seem to be much more powerful or weaker than the Chosen Undead; he's basically another version of the same character, and the power level between the two games seems fairly balanced.

Ashen One

Now things start to get more complex. The Ashen One is basically someone who tried to rekindle the First Flame and failed, being consumed by it in the process and turning to ashes. So he's not an undead like the previous two, he's not affected by the curse, and he possesses his own form of immortality.

In Dark Souls 3, the protagonist faces other Unkindled like himself and even confronts an amalgamation of all previous protagonists along with everyone who has tried to rekindle the flame before, including Gwyn himself. This is the final boss of the base game, called Soul of Cinder, a manifestation of the flame itself trying to protect itself.

In The Ringed City DLC, players must face Gael, a character who absorbs the power of the Dark Soul and becomes so powerful that he’s the only one still alive at the end of the world, except for the Ashen One, who arrives to stop the final boss.

The Hunter

In Bloodborne, the protagonist is a stranger who arrives in Yharnam amidst the chaos that plagues the region. Known only as The Hunter, he faces everything from werewolves and other aberrations to the unspeakable cosmic horrors present in Bloodborne.

The Hunter must put an end to nightmares that take physical form and confront aberrations capable of altering even reality, granting this protagonist cosmic-level feats. Something that clearly puts the Souls Trilogy on a lower level.

Wolf

Wolf needs to overcome more human challenges and survive by relying on his sword skills, without being able to count on supernatural powers as much as in other titles in the franchise.

The Tarnished

The Tarnished from Elden Ring is in a universe that’s noticeably more powerful. Much of this is due to the fact that Elden Ring's lore is far more developed than in other games.

The Lands Between are the stage for grand battles between gods and entities that dominate abstract concepts such as death, time, day, and night. Legends with the power to hold the stars in the sky, manipulate time, kill immortal beings, and even destroy the entire universe.

In Elden Ring, the power level is absurdly high, and the same is true for the protagonist, who ultimately masters all possible forces and weapons with expertise.

Analyzing the feats of each character within their respective works, it becomes easy to define who are the most powerful in these terms. The Tainted One stands far ahead of all the others, since, as the bearer of the Elden Ring, he can shape reality as he sees fit.

The Hunter from Bloodborne and the triad of protagonists from Dark Souls follow closely behind, all well-balanced in terms of feats and power levels. The Slayer from Demon's Souls comes next, being slightly below in terms of feats, and Sekiro ends up being the most down-to-earth character of all, facing more believable and realistic challenges.

I conclude this article here. Leave your questions, suggestions, criticisms, and/or compliment in the comments. Thank you for reading and until next time.