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The success of the Souls series created the Soulslike (also referred to as “Soulsborne”) genre, which created a good number of very challenging but very satisfying and fun games. But what makes the Soulslike genre unique and what started it? Time to find out!
The term Soulslike, unsurprisingly, comes from the popular Souls series developed by FromSoftware.
The game Demon’s Souls, developed in 2009 is the first one that had many core features and mechanics used in the genre today. Many people attribute that success to the director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who took over the development after a series of setbacks plagued its production.
Luckily the Demon’s Souls was received well, which allowed FromSoftware to create a spiritual successor series, Dark Souls. The series achieved international success and in turn created Action RPG subgenre Soulslike.
There are various core features that fans consider as a Soulslike feature. For example the checkpoint system (Bonfires, Grace etc) that allows rest and recuperation for the player, challenging boss fights with unique fighting patterns and attacks, respawning system, high difficulty, reliance on the skill of the player to succeed are some of the most relevant ones to the genre.
Soulslike games rarely have any difficulty sliders (with some rare exceptions), meaning that the players don’t have a choice in how hard the game is meant to be. Which is quite challenging and requires a lot of patience and retries to learn. There have been some debates whether there should be an easy mode but so far there isn’t much push in that direction by developers.
Part of the difficulty is the limited save/checkpoint accessibility. Each area has a few safe points that allow players to rest and recuperate before continuing on.
The original Souls series bonfires healed the player, recharged their spells stock (or FP), revived enemies in the area and more, making them very important during each playthrough. Especially since the respawning system is a very interesting system.
Death isn’t the end, it’s more of an expectation in the Soulslike games. It’s not without a cost, as it usually makes the player lose all the accumulated “currency” (souls, experience etc) used for purchasing items or levelling up character.
With an option to retrieve it back after respawning but with a risk of losing it permanently if slain before getting it back.
The aforementioned checkpoints play a big part in this system since they reduce the distance for players to travel before their untimely demise, making them feel like an actual safe haven and a huge relief whenever found.
Possibly one of the most recognisable features of the genre, fantastic boss fights. These powerful and often unfair (at first) opponents have unique movesets and designs as they test the players abilities and their builds. They’ll often cause multiple retries to defeat but as long as there’s a will, they can be beaten.
There are plenty of non-required boss fights that players can find and test themselves against if they wish to. These range from hard to just plain unfair, yet none of them are unbeatable and they can drop some really useful gear, on top of the satisfaction of winning against them.
It’s no exaggeration that player skill and knowledge is the most important part of being successful in any Soulslike.
Learning enemy attack patterns and weakness, picking best possible gear to maximise the effectiveness of each build, mastering dodging and IFrames (invincibility frames) to successfully avoid devastating attacks, all of it and more comes from the player basically “getting good” through repetition and their timings.
While levelling up and good equipment can help, it’s the skill that ultimately dictates success in the end, making Soulslike games very satisfying to master.
Other than the previously mentioned Souls series there’s quite a few interesting titles on the market currently that follow the established formula with their own flavour to it.
Elden Ring is basically an open world Souls game. It comes from the creators of the genre, FromSoftware, so it’s no surprise the game is extremely popular and well received amongst the fans.
There are plenty of locations to explore and enemies to test the player's ability and with the introduction of the open world also came a mount “Torrent” to traverse the world faster. Similarly to previous Souls games, there’s a large focus on learning enemy combat patterns and parrying/dodging attacks to successfully defeat enemies, relying on players abilities a lot.
The story itself follows one of the unnamed “Tarnished”, beings that possess the ability to revive indefinitely but also the possibility to become an “Elden Lord” and bring a great change in the “Lands Between” (where the game takes place).
Elden Ring is a culmination of previous Souls games but is also a great starting point for new players, at least for those who enjoy testing themselves and is a very hearty recommendation for anyone.
A very successful game from the Korean studios Neowiz Games and Round8, developed in 2023.
It takes place in a fictional city of Krat, with the European 19th - 20th century Belle Epoque period serving as an inspiration for its setting and overall feel within the game. The characters and themes are also loosely based around the “Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi.
The main character, the titular “P” (Pinocchio) is a mechanical puppet, through his exploration of the city of Krat, he’ll encounter various enemies and difficult bosses, as expected in a good Soulslike game. There’s plenty of fun and challenging combat, various builds to learn, interesting tools to enhance gameplay, intricate story with interesting characters, all of this made Lies of P a very well received title with fans already waiting for the sequel or DLCs to dive back into.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was developed by Respawn Entertainment in 2019. The game follows one of the survivors of the Jedi purge, padawan Cal Kestis, five years after the events from the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie.
While keeping a low profile as a scavenger, he reveals himself to possess the Force while saving his friend from death. This causes Sith Inquisitors to mark him for capture, which ends up with him being rescued by a Jedi Knight Cere Junda. From this point on Cal’s destiny is set on the restoration of the Jedi order to oppose the Empire.
Fallen Order is one of the few Soulslike games that offers difficulty settings to make overall experience easier, which allows more casual players to also enjoy the gameplay and story. There’s plenty of “metroidvania” style exploration where players can return to previously explored locations (planets) to access previously unreachable sections after unlocking new skills, abilities and powers.
It’s an interesting mix of both genres, even if it can harm the story pacing a bit. All in all, it’s definitely worth checking out for all Soulslike genre fans, especially the more casual enjoyers.
Absolutely, positively, definitely not. Soulslike games are for players who enjoy unfair (but overcomable) challenges, mastering the game by constant repetition and through learning attack patterns of the enemies.
That doesn’t mean they CAN’T be enjoyed by casual players, it’s just that the game forces players to get better at it to actually proceed, there are no shortcuts, it has to be achieved either through sheer stubbornness or getting good at the game.
So, while they’re not for everyone, there’s nothing stopping anyone from at least giving it a try and potentially learning that putting effort and succeeding in highly challenging settings can feel really rewarding, if a bit frustrating at a start.
Demon’s Souls created by FromSoftware is first in the long list of games that implemented most recognisable elements of the genre. It was the success of the Dark Souls that gave rise to the term Soulslike though.
MOST Soulslike games do not offer difficulty as it’s meant to be equally challenging for everyone, some modern titles try to go against this notion to entice casual players.
They’ve got a very dedicated fanbase numbering in millions, which makes the genre quite popular, even among some casual players.
