Gaming preservationists have just rescued a significant piece of FromSoftware history. The long-lost mobile version of King’s Field—FromSoftware’s first video game and the spiritual predecessor to the Dark Souls series—has been successfully preserved and made accessible to players worldwide.
The i-Mode version, which was released exclusively in Japan back in 2004, is a retelling of the original PlayStation release with different map layouts and an auto-map feature. What makes this preservation particularly significant is that many Japanese mobile games from the early 2000s have been especially vulnerable to being lost forever due to unique hardware and software ecosystems.
The newly preserved mobile version isn’t merely a direct port but rather a retelling of the original game with new features. An English language patch is already available, and setup guides have been provided to help players get started with emulation software.
This rescue of King’s Field’s mobile version represents more than just the preservation of a single game—it’s the recovery of a crucial link in the evolutionary chain that eventually led to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. FromSoftware’s journey from this humble dungeon crawler to creating some of the most acclaimed and influential games of the modern era provides fascinating context for understanding how the studio developed its distinctive approach.
What was it like to play these mobile games in 2004?
Kings Field relied heavily on timing attacks as you move forward so they’d land just as you came into range of an enemy’s hitbox, then immediately backstepping before the return attack hits you. That and circling behind enemies and strafing around to take advantage of their glacial turn speeds.
Both of those were hard enough on the pre-analog stick PlayStation controller - it would be miserable to pull off on a mobile keyboard.
(I’m still probably going to try it. Kings Field, my beloved.)