this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Dark Souls popularized the stamina meter and the "dropping all your money on death and having to go pick it back up" mechanic. Not to mention spawning a subgenre of similar games like Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen
The first Dark Souls was 2011. Diablo was released in 1997. World of Warcraft was 2004 and while you didn't quite drop all your stuff and money you die you did have to run back to your corpse to keep from having all your stuff degrade and cost a bunch of money. The first Sonic was 1991 and getting hit makes you drop all your "money" and have to pick it back up.
Mechanic wise the first was Demons Souls in 2009. But your point still stands.
It isn't a question of who did it first, it's a question of who made it popular. Look at how many games have a death run since DS came out. Hollow Knight, Nioh, Blasphemous, etc. It's also not the same mechanic as losing your items on death.
I had a stamina meter in Morrowind in 2002 and in daggerfall in 1996.
They did spawn a sub genre, but the stamina meter being popularized is nonsense.
Those mechanics were lifted/copied straight from Monster Hunter, mind you :)
The PS2 and PSP Monster Hunter games are basically dark souls but you gotta kill giant bosses to transform their scales into better armor and weapons.
Dark Souls is literally just Legend of Zelda for adults, which had a stamina system at about the same time Kings Field did. It's honestly hilarious to me that it became known as the father of the genre, but the immediate copycats were also aiming for a similar tone to FromSoftware so I guess it's fair.