>>94678713Game franchises are larger in public consciousness than they are in actual players. Just look at the peak player numbers as the series goes on and there's no other possible interpretation. Demon's Souls was a smash hit nobody played, so tons of secondaries went out of their way for the sequel which was an "even bigger" smash hit a few people played, which meant lots of people only bought in for Dark Souls 2 as their first game. Even more people only bought in for Dark Souls 3, and so on.
You will see this same pattern of behavior with every popular franchise and it almost always results in acceptance of any changes (because for most players, they are not changes). This is a big part of the rationale for remakes and reboots, since most of the "fans" of a well-known game have never played it. They're not actually made so that you can replay it as some people mistakenly believe.
