In this article, we will talk about the soulslike game genre, i.e., hardcore action games in which any mistake often costs your character’s life. People call such games “arsonists of ass” and a “thunderstorm of controllers.” At first, they are incomprehensible, complex, and in some places seem dishonest, but then when you begin to understand them, you understand their charm and why they are so popular. In this article, we look at the best soulslike games out there from developers other than FromSoftware. So if you have a masochistic bent, have we got a list for you!
Video game architect Hidetaka Miyazaki and developer FromSoftware created a new subgenre of action games – Soulsborne or Souls-like – with the release of Demon’s Souls in 2009. The team continued to improve its products in a new genre (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, etc.) for many years, giving rise to many imitators. Most soulslike games don’t live up to the high bar that FromSoftware sets with their Soulsborne games, while others have unique and inspiring elements.
Games like Souls don’t have clear definitions, leading to debate about what defines a genre. For this list, Soulslikes can be defined by their challenging combat encounters, labyrinthine level design and, of course, unlockable shortcuts, checkpoints in any similar bonfire style, stamina management, dodge and parry mechanics, and, frankly, a dozen or so other features that practically begs for exceptions to prove their insignificance for the genre. This list contains the best Souls-like games if you’re looking for a game or series that will satisfy your thirst for suffering, redemption, and victory over soul-destroying circumstances.
13: Death’s Gambit: Afterlife
It’s not very often you can associate Adult Swim with something dark without adding “-comedy” at the end of it. They tend to dabble in other realms occasionally, introducing a great 2D Soulslike that deserved a spot on this list easily.
Death’s Gambit tells its tale through gorgeous pixel art, though it didn’t hit its stride until the Afterlife expansion last year. A free DLC, Afterlife offers more of a challenge, more weapons, and an overhaul that makes the core game more enjoyable.
12: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Are you ready for the next evolution in mech titles? Would you like to see a return to the franchise that helped establish one of the best video game developers? If so, prepare yourself for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon!
That’s right! FromSoftware is diving back into its beloved mech franchise for the first time in a decade. Their new experiences from other titles aim to deliver an epic mech combat experience featuring omni-directional fights where you’ll have to be on your toes to survive.
Whether you play the main storyline or go up against your friends, you must outfit your mech the best way possible to get out alive!
11: Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight is a very deceptive game. It looks cute with its Flash art-style characters, but beneath that, it offers a surprisingly dark story that needs to be experienced to be believed.
You, the Hollow Knight, are sent to explore a once-flourishing kingdom that’s been infected by something strange. The game’s combat is engaging enough to warrant sticking through for multiple playthroughs. It may look deceptively adorable, but there’s as much challenge here as the Unkindled have to suffer through in Dark Souls.
10: Thymesia
Thymesia may seem a lot like Bloodborne at first, but in practice, the combat is much closer to the quick parries of Sekiro mixed with Demon’s Souls aesthetics (and Bloodborne fashion). On paper, this sounds incredible. In practice, the game offers a pleasant pastime, which is unlikely to capture your imagination. You play as a warrior named Corvus, who travels through a plague-ridden land in search of his lost memories to save the kingdom.
Most of the boss fights are memorable, offering some serious challenges (and great character designs), and the Plague Weapons feature is fantastic, offering a wide selection of charged special abilities that look amazing. The combat is enjoyable for the most part, although it is not without its brutality. The game’s exploration, however, is sorely lacking. With the exception of some narrative journal entries, there’s nothing in the game to entice you to go back or look into every corner of the area you’ve traversed, and exploration itself is frustrating as you constantly stumble upon empty dead ends. The game is worth a look for Souls fans as it has some fascinating ideas, but there are better products that are worth your time.
9: Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is the first Soulslike on this list that takes place in a real historical setting (though it certainly won’t be the last). Wo Long is set in horror-infused China during the Three Kingdoms era, and features absolutely brutal combat, a beautiful setting, and a wide variety of weapons to collect and use. The five-element system stands out in particular, offering cool spells related to the elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). Plus, you’ll fight alongside interesting characters, offering a relatively unique experience for the often solo Soulslikes adventure. With all this, Wo Long has its own problems.
You’ll encounter some particularly steep difficulty spikes along the way, which hinders the feeling of progress and improvement at completely random intervals. You’ll run into a brutal wall with the first boss, Zhang Liang, or you’ll get through the next ones without too much trouble before running into the dreaded octopus and Aoye, the cow. Combined with the often annoying parry system, which uses the same button as the dodge (single tap parry, double tap dodge), it’s very easy to make a mistake with your input, which can cost you a win. The above, combined with the extremely linear level design, creates an excellent (if sometimes annoying) challenge for those determined enough to see it to the end.
8: Mortal Shell
Mortal Shell is a shorter but still delightful Souls-like game. Inspired by the original Dark Souls, Mortal Shell offers a dark and desolate setting full of mysterious characters and monstrous enemies. The combat and animations aren’t as crisp as we’d like, and most of the environments feel a little basic if well executed, but there are huge bursts of passion throughout the game’s ~10 hours. Eternal Narthex, in particular, is an incredible zone that truly lives up to its creative vision.
It features the fun Harden ability, which allows you to turn into stone to fend off attacks, and a unique body-switching mechanic where you find corpses that you inhabit, gaining certain attributes and abilities associated with them while alive. As a result, Mortal Shell becomes a unique, if a little rough, adventure. The hammer and chisel weapon deserves a special mention – one of the favorite dual weapon concepts, which is directly written into the fascinating history of the world.
7: Lords of the Fallen
Lords of the Fallen occurs in an epic medieval fantasy world where a fallen god rules with a rod of iron. The game will use dark fantasy in its aesthetics and storytelling, which aims to build on the previous game’s popularity. With that said, this new installment is set a thousand years after the events of the original, so you don’t have to venture back and replay the game if you want to jump into this installment. Still, you can expect the same soulslike gameplay experience, which means some challenging combat. Overall, the narrative will once again see the demonic lord Adyr return as he breaks into the world of the living, forcing a hero to step up and return this beast back to the underworld.
6: Code Vein
Code Vein is a new iteration of the genre often described as a Souls-like anime. The dystopian setting features a future Earth that has fallen to the bloodthirsty monsters that roam the ruins of the old world. You play as a revenant, a reborn vampire warrior, and join an organization to investigate the Great Calamity and fight back against the Lost and their deadly Miasma. The plot isn’t particularly original, but Code Vein puts storytelling first, featuring several cutscenes and character interactions that make it a nice departure from the typically mysterious stories of most soulslikes.
Even if you’re not a big anime fan, this game offers a lot of great Souls-like mechanics. Combat is fast-paced, if a little floaty and the number of customization options allows for the perfect combat experience. Code Vein is by far the easiest Soulslike on this list, offering a greater challenge than the typical action JRPG but much easier than the typical Soulslike. The exploration can be a mixed bag, focusing heavily on straight-line corridor navigation that can get repetitive. Still, the experience is worth having – especially as an introduction to the genre!
5: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
The highly anticipated sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor returns several years after the end of the first game, deepening the story of Cal Kestis and his friends as they continue to survive and fight against a galaxy overrun by Imperial forces. . While the narrative isn’t as tightly focused as Fallen Order, Survivor takes every other aspect of the game to a higher level, improving the variety of combat options, adding exciting new abilities, enemies, and planets to explore.
Like Code Vein, Jedi: Survivor feels less like a typical Soulslike due to its emphasis on storytelling, but otherwise it ticks all the boxes of a Soulslike – challenging combat, rewarding exploration, detailed character customization options to customize your build and appearance. If you’re a Star Wars fan and a Souls fan, Survivor is an inevitable crossover point. Lightsaber combat has never been so good.
4: The Surge 2
Like the previous game on this list, Deck 13’s The Surge 2 took everything good about the first game and improved on it. The Surge 2 is another take on the much-requested Sci-fi Soulslike but with a much grittier industrial twist than Star Wars. The first Surge game had some great ideas, such as targeting a specific body part to dismember to obtain more powerful items and armor. Still, it ultimately felt a bit underdeveloped and many of the environments felt repetitive and claustrophobic.
The Surge 2 greatly expands the gameplay experience by introducing an open, multi-level city environment in and around Jerichoen. The variety of enemies still isn’t amazing, but what they lack in varied design they make up for in the wide variety of weapon types you fight (and acquire through dismemberment) adding some much-needed variety to encounters. The fighting itself became much sharper and faster. The game’s aesthetics are nothing like FromSoftware’s Soulsborne games, but the polish, attention to detail, and control feel are all top-notch.
3: Remnant 2
Remnant 2 again takes all the great ideas found in its predecessor and refines them, a recurring theme in many of the greatest Soulslikes. Remnant 2 takes place several decades after the events of Remnant From The Ashes and returns players to Section 13 to continue the fight against the Root and the threats beyond, although, like the first game, it will take you to more exotic worlds. What sets Remnant 1 and 2 apart from the other games on this list is that they prioritize gunplay.
Remnant 2 is a third-person shooter with light melee combat elements rather than a primarily melee-focused game like typical Souls games. This design change is reflected in every aspect of the game, from the layout of battle arenas to enemy behavior; Remnant 2 approaches combat with a focus on shooting.
Due to the spatial nature of Remnant’s story, the game’s environments range from the fantasy aesthetic of the reborn world of Yaesha and the new world of Losomn to the sci-fi setting of N’Erud, a crashed alien ship. Weapon designs are equally varied, from World War II-inspired rifles to bizarre and twisted living weapons like the Merciless and futuristic technological weapons like the Phantom Blade and Cubic Cannon. Combine this with smooth co-op play and randomly generated levels for each world, and this fantasy Souls-style shooter offers incredible replayability. Also, the new addition should expand the history and possibilities.
2: Nioh 2
In beautifully stylized Japan of the 1600s, navigate your way through unique and unrepeatable environments. Nioh 2, the sequel to 2017’s Nioh, takes everything the first game did and refines it to perfection. If you’re the type of player who enjoys deep combat mechanics in Soulslike with an emphasis on stances and weapon synergies, intense encounters and encounters, a deep item pool, and varied environments, give Nioh 2 a try.
Nioh’s smart and fast combat is complemented by the fact that the synergy of positions and weapons unlocks various abilities, buffs and the “living weapon” skill, which makes you more powerful and invulnerable for a while. The combat itself is much faster than in many FromSoftware games (even Sekiro pales in comparison), and the supernatural elements in Nioh 2 take up the entire space, as there are countless fantastic enemies and creatures to fight. The mission-based structure and Diablo-style loot are a stark departure from the typical Souls-like experience, but the environments are varied and gorgeous, the yokai are beautifully detailed and destructive if underestimated, and the combat is flashy and combo-heavy, making the game incredibly fun from start to finish.
1: Lies Of P
The newest release on this list, Lies of P, is one of the best Soulslikes ever. Lies of P is a dark and twisted retelling of the story of Pinocchio, set in the industrial city of Crate. The streets of the city are filled with mechanical puppets, a mysterious disease has struck the inhabitants, and you are awakened by a mysterious voice from the darkness, begging for help. Replace “mechanical dolls” with “wild beasts,” and you’ll realize that the game can easily be called a steampunk Bloodborne, and it fully justifies this comparison.
Bias aside, this game is in tune with what makes the soulslikes genre great. The combat is exciting, the variety of weapons and weapon customization options is fantastic, the boss battles are challenging yet rewarding, and the narrative and setting are FromSoftware’s perfect balance of ambiguity and intrigue. This is by far the highest quality Souls-like game that comes closest to the storytelling and gameplay of FromSoftware’s iconic Soulsborne games while still having its own personality. If you love this genre even a little, you simply must check out this game.
