So much this. A lot of this has to do with the fact that journalists are afraid to criticize these games in fear of being called names by the "leet" gamers. And gamers afraid to criticize or even not play them because it's considered the cool thing to do and some sort of an honor badge.
Because a) the scale of the sales far outmatch their previous releases even though Souls games have been hyped since DS1, and b) usually people hype these games, die, and return them or stop playing which depresses their popularity outside of core fans as time goes on. But if I had to guess the accessibility features and open world nature did wonders for making the game more popular, but the devs don't understand how those small changes have such an outsized impact on the market.
Almost Every Souls sequel sold more than the previous. Dark Souls 3 sold over 10 million. As I stated the Souls series due to exposure and word of mouth was climbing up and up every sequel.
True, but the growth really exploded with ER and it wasn't just more linear growth. ER sold more than DS3's lifetime sales in 2w. That's impressive.
It was definitely deserved. To think I shelved it for months because the open world change was off putting to me but later picked it up and never stopped playing.
