The best hub areas in Souls games, ranked

Hub areas are some of the most important places in any Soulsborne game, where players can rest in peace and safety, interact with NPCs, and learn important story beats. The role the realms play in the story varies from game to game, as does their aesthetic and reverence. This list provides our ranking for the best hub areas in all seven FromSoftware Soulsborne games based on value to story, lore impact, and overall importance to the series as a whole.

7. Ruined Temple: Sekiro

Sekiro’s run-down temple on the edge of the Ashina outskirts is a low-key, quiet place befitting the grumpy wolf and the ruined world he inhabits. Neither the most impressive nor the most important story setting in Sekiro, it is nonetheless the place where most of the worthwhile NPCs come to rest and the source of the more complicated endings. It’s also home to the tutorial character and the lost item collection box, giving most of the temple a utilitarian feel rather than being a central part of the narrative.

6. Hold Round Table: Elden Ring

Aside from a shocking mid-game reveal, Elden Ring’s Roundtable Hold is mostly a useful location like Sekiro’s run-down temple. It has greater story significance and is more aesthetically impressive. Most notably, its residents and layout evolve as the game progresses, serving as hosts for vendors, end-specific NPCs, and entities that add additional flavor to the world. The fact that it can only be reached via teleportation and is therefore isolated from the rest of the game also speaks against it.

5. Firelink Shrine: Dark Souls 3

The second instance of Firelink Shrine in the Dark Souls games, the Dark Souls 3 variant was a blueprint for Elden Ring’s Roundtable Hold as there is no physical connection to most of the game world. The difference is how important the Firelink Shrine is to Lothric’s story. This version of Firelink, the resting place of the various Lords of Cinder and the gateway to the First Flame Furnace, is the most narratively important in the series.

4. Majula: Dark Souls 2

There is something special about experiencing Majula that other hubs can’t match. Though the music is understated and its aesthetic at odds with the rest of the game, the sense of peace and serenity here is unmatched. It’s also the first hub area on this list that connects directly to the rest of the world and even features a bottomless pit that reaches down to the darkest depths of Drangleic. The only thing holding it back is a lack of story relevance, as Majula serves more as a home for vendors and a place to rest than a source of narrative weight.

3. Firelink Shrine: Dark Souls

The Firelink Shrine from the original Dark Souls is the first hub area most Souls players have experienced and is even more subdued than Majula, but it’s a much more important location. Not only is it connected to the rest of the game and home to merchants and story NPCs, it exists above both the Abyss and the gateway to Gwyn’s prison, the Furnace of the First Flame. While not as impressive as Dark Souls 3’s Shrine, this version’s connection and importance to the series cannot be overstated.

2. Hunter’s Dream: Bloodborne

The Hunter’s Dream is unique in that it follows the Demon’s Souls pattern of being a hub in the more old-fashioned sense, providing a path to the game’s various regions through the tombstones and hiding extra content that’s just out of reach are. The Hunter’s Dream speaks directly to Bloodborne’s underlying narrative and how the game plays with player expectations, showing one thing on the surface and hiding something far stranger. The number of character interactions here, the subdued but complex aesthetic, and the narrative importance of the dream all add to it.

1. The Nexus: Souls of Demons

Sometimes the first try is the best, and that’s true of the Soulsborne series. The Nexus in Demon’s Souls is not only the most impressive hub area, it is by far the most important in its history. While the game makes no bones about its purpose, the endgame reveal is nonetheless one of the best worldbuildings FromSoftware has ever made. The NPCs here are also some of the most interesting in the series, and while the location is evolving and also not particularly complex, it remains the standard that all other Soulsborne games are required to meet, and none of them quite met it.