@icedquinn It's an exploration and discovery thing. Modern games went too far in gamifying their world, and they ended up signposting everything. Everything became a "type" of activity you did in a game, delineated usually with a map icon and clear rules and story beats that happen only when you do actions that are meant to advance the story. But suddenly there's the Souls games. Obviously, they're games with specific coded elements, but they don't stick to a rote formula, at least, not one that's identifiable within the same game.

Dark Souls doesn't tell you: "dungeons are there, you need to be this level, boss's at the end, NPCs congregate in that area". You figure it out, the game doesn't make it easy on you, and it's not afraid to break what you thought were the "rules": your hub can suddenly become unsafe, NPC can suddenly die or disappear without you being warned this would happen. There can be anything around any corner.

Anyway, that's why it appeals to someone exploration-driven in games. And it's not something From Software only discovered with the Souls games, they've been doing this since their very first game. It's just that while the rest of the industry moved to more procedural or "systemized" games, From Software were always kind of aliens within the games industry, not "learning" or getting much inspiration from their peers, doing their thing in their corner that only a very niche group of people enjoyed, because they required having trust in the dev and sticking with it to distinguish their games from a bargain bin special, until Demon's Souls and Dark Souls exposed it in a package that's actually appealing at first glance.