Hub areas are the most important places in any Soulsborn game, where players can rest in peace and safety, interact with NPCs, and learn important story beats. The roles of the regions in the story vary from game to game, as does their aesthetic and sense of awe. This list details our ranking for the best hub areas among all seven FromSoftware Soulsborne games based on story value, lore implications, and the general importance of the series as a whole.
7. Dilapidated Temple: Sekiro
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The dilapidated Temple of Sekiro, located on the edge of the Ashina outskirts, is a reserved, quiet place inhabited by the Door Wolf and the broken world. Neither the most influential nor important story space in Sekiro, yet it is where most meaningful NPCs rest and is the source of more complex endings. It is also home to the tutorial character and lost-object collection box, giving much of the temple a utilitarian feel, rather than being the main part of the narrative.
6. Round Table Conference Hold: Elden Ring
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The Elden Ring’s Round Table Conference is mostly a utilitarian space like Sekiro’s dilapidated temple, except for one shocking reveal in the middle of the game. It has a great story importance and is more impressive from an aesthetic point of view. Most of all, its inhabitants and layout evolve as the game progresses, playing host to vendors, specific NPCs, and entities that provide additional flavors to the world. The fact that it is only accessible by teleportation, and thus disconnected from the rest of the game, is also a point against it.
5. Firelink Shrine: Dark Souls 3
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Another example of the Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls games, Dark Souls 3’s version, was a blueprint for the roundtable hold of the Elden Ring, which does not have a physical connection to most of the game’s world. The difference lies in how important the Firelink Shrine is to the story of Lothric. The resting place of the various Lords of Cinder and the entrance to the First Flame Kiln, this version of Firelink is the most important in the series.
4. Majula: Dark Souls 2
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There is something special about experiencing Majula that other hub regions cannot match. Although the music is underrated and its beauty stands in contrast to the rest of the game, the sense of peace and tranquility here is unmatched. It is also the first hub region on this list that connects directly to the rest of the world, even providing a bottomless crater that reaches to Dranglic’s deepest depths. The only thing holding it back is the lack of significance of the story, as Majula serves more as a home for sellers and a place to rest than a source of narrative weight.
3. Firelink Shrine: Dark Souls
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The first hub area that most Souls players have ever experienced is even more muted than the Firelink Shrine Majula from the original Dark Souls, but it’s a much more substantial location. Not only does it connect with the rest of the game and play home to vendors and story NPCs, it’s also present above both the Abyss and Gwyn’s prison gate, The Kill of the First Flame. While not as impressive as Shrine of Dark Souls 3, this version’s interconnectedness and importance to the series cannot be overstated.
2. Hunter’s Dream: Bloodborne
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Hunter’s Dream is unique in that it follows Demon’s Souls’ pattern of being a hub area in the more old-school sense, offering a route through headstones to various areas of the game and additional Hides the content out of reach. Hunter’s Dream speaks directly to the underlying narrative of Bloodborne and how the game plays with players’ expectations, showing one thing on the surface and hiding something stranger. Here the number of character interactions, the subdued but complex aesthetic, and the narrative significance of the dream’s dream elevate it.
1. Nexus: Demon’s Souls
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Sometimes the first attempt is your best, and that holds true for the Soulsborn series. Nexus in Demon’s Souls is not only the most impressive hub area, but by far the most important to its story. While the game makes no bones about its purpose, the endgame reveal is still some of the best world building FromSoftware has ever done. The NPCs here are also some of the most interesting in the series, and while the location evolves nor is it particularly complex, it remains the standard that all other Soulsborn games have to meet, and none of them Haven’t arrived completely either.
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