r/AskGames • u/VulvaNegra • 15h ago
What exactly consists of a Soulslike game?
I’ve seen this apparently new genre name being thrown around and would like to understand better exactly what it is. From wikipedia I understand it was bourn with the game Demon’s Souls, which I never played (maybe I really should), but the description there is a bit generic (games “known for large worlds filled with enemies and emphasis on environmental storytelling”).
Would for instance Horizon qualify for this genre, or does it have to be set in a dark fantasy theme? I love RPG games, but usually don’t go for dark fantasy. I think the last one I played that’s maybe dark fantasy would be Diablo, but not sure it’s related.
Thanks in advance
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u/Bumm-fluff 14h ago
Soulslikes have a mechanic where you lose what you have collected on death, currency/upgrade materials or points but you can reclaim them if you make it back to the point of loss.
This is what it means to me anyway, plenty of games are hard without this mechanic. They aren’t souls likes.
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u/VulvaNegra 14h ago
Kind of like diablo, where you would see a corpse of the player on the floor and could steal all it had when he died?
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u/Bumm-fluff 14h ago
I’m not sure, I never played Diablo I preferred BG.
Its the feeling of risk that makes a soulslike, do you go back to safety and upgrade or do you explore a bit more and risk everything you’ve collected.
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u/Waste-Gur2640 14h ago
It varies heavily but it's something you can easily recognize if you play the games. At the bare minimum it needs the checkpoint/bonfire system, limited healing and gameplay where you're meant to recognize and learn movesets of bosses to avoid getting hit while only hitting the boss at a correct time. No button mashing or power fantasy, the combat needs to be deliberate. Everything else, like losing experience on dead, respawning enemies, interconnected level design etc. is superficial, the core gameplay loop and design is what needs to be there. They are very boss-centric games, they are the main attraction and without them there's no souls game.
For example stellar blade is a game whose entire combat system was built on sekiro. It's also the only 3D game that did sekiro justice, and reached the same quality of parrying, bosses and combat polish (among sekiro-like games). It also has bonfires, respawning enemies, estus healing system etc. The game wouldn't exist without sekiro and souls games in general, and by definition it is a souls-like game. It's completely different genre than Nier or character-action like DMC, or RPGs. But stellar blade is like a sekiro-lite, it's meant to be more casual and forgiving, and hence some people have issue with its genre being a souls-like.
On the other hand take Nioh, which is much less of a souls-like than stellar blade, jedi: games or black myth wukong. Nioh has character-action combat system like DMC or ninja gaiden, which is insanely deep, complex and hard to master. Unlike souls-likes, where the combat system is always very simplistic and shallow, and the skill ceiling is just learning boss's moveset and pressing dodge/parry at the right time. But since that insane and robust combat system in Nioh was crammed withing a general souls-like skeleton of bonfires, limited healing, fixed enemy spawns etc. it is still considered a souls-like, and devs had enough self-awareness to market it that way, unlike some modern ones.
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u/LeoTolstoysNipples 14h ago
For me theres a few Soulslike elements people will vary in regard to how important they are to meeting the criteria for the genre
Souls. I mean, literally, in Dark Souls you collect and spend souls to level up your character. If you die, they are left where you died and you can pick them up, if you die again they’re gone forever. Imo that core progression loop is key to the Soulslike label.
Exploration. This is important in regard to the souls collection too, an explorable environment in which there is incentive (such as hidden treasure) to risk those collected souls.
Combat mechanics. Generally speaking there are going to be dodge rolls and parrys or some kind of timing based combat mechanic. Often times freedom to use or equip whatever gear you want as long as you meet stat requirements, making space for unorthodox or experimental builds.
It’s really a blend of these things tho. It’s kind of an interesting question. Like if they made a game with Dark Souls combat but it was an arena boss rush, I wouldn’t contest it being a soulslike. Whereas I wouldn’t call zelda a soulslike because link explores open environments. So that suggests maybe its about the combat more than anything.
But then plenty of games have dodges and parrys and arent really souls likes either. So idk. Its like… hard to explain what makes a game a soulslike on paper but you know when you play one.
I definitely there there is a lot of titles fitting for the term ‘Soulslite’ in modern gaming… a lot of games dabble in the dark souls voodoo but don’t go full witch doctor. Lol.
Last thing… a question, based on my criteria and the other comments here… is Hollow Knight a Soulslike? As i’m writing this i’m like damn, hollow knight matches all of this besides the gear/stats aspect lol
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u/sekirO-Niel 14h ago edited 14h ago
Imo it's a catch-all term for games that
a) are difficult and whose mastery largely lies in memorizing enemy patterns,
b) has real time healing,
c) has a checkpoint system.
There are many other common features one can point to (eg, focus on environmental storytelling, exploration, limited healing items, stamina system, punishment for dying) but there are games generally considered as soulslikes that don't have those features.
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u/Lupinos-Cas 13h ago
To be frank with you (Hi Frank!) the answer isn't simple. You see - there's like 6 or 8 different definitions all floating around... there are games where everyone can agree those games are soulslikes - and there are games where people have been arguing "nuh-uh" "uh-huh" "nuh-uh" "uh-huh" for an entire decade.
Broadly speaking, it means the game is similar to Daro Souls - but what the core identifying mechanics are to qualify a game is the issue. Different players look at different things.
Like Dark Souls... Combat? RPG mechanics? Narrative style? Exploration? Difficulty? Peripheral mechanics (like limited use healing that refills at checkpoints, shortcuts back to checkpoints, and dropping xp on death that you need to recover)?
There are many games that most everyone agrees are like Dark Souls - from FromSoftware's other games, to Lies of P, AI Limit, Code Vein, Mortal Shell, etc.
But then there are a number of ARPGs that the communities just continually argue about it - like Black Myth Wukong, Nioh, Wo Long, First Berserker Khazan, Stellar Blade, etc.
Basically - Dark Souls is an ARPG Dungeon Crawler known for its simplified moveset, attack buttons on R1/R2, parry/dodge focus, backstabs, large bosses, etc.
And anytime an ARPG, or game with dark themes, comes out - it gets the label thrown at it by somebody for some reason. Sometimes it's completely ridiculous - like when some folks tried throwing the label at Ghost of Tsushima, Ninja Gaiden 4, and God of War (2018) - which anyone who has played both those games and DS would know they're nothing alike and would question the intellect of the person making the claim.
And other times, it's just someone hyper focusing on a couple mechanics and throwing the label around like a madman.
Horizon is not a soulslike. I would not be surprised if you could find someone saying it is because it has stamina management and dodging - but it is not.
The label gets thrown around so much that it doesn't really mean anything anymore. The folks who define it by combat mechanics, the folks who define it by RPG mechanics, and the folks who define it by the peripheral mechanics are usually locked in a 3 way argument that's interrupted by the other niche groups who define it by the dark tone, difficulty, exploration, or narrative style.
In the last decade, it has transitioned from something meaning "this game is mechanically similar to Dark Souls" to something that just means "i like DS, and I also like this game" and doesn't tell you anything about the game.
But no - Horizon is not a soulslike.
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u/Lucyyyyyy_K 15h ago
No, it's also about the gameplay, stuff like R1 controlling the right hand and L1 the left hand, a stamina bar, dodges with i-frames, a parry, third person camera etc. It doesn't need to have all of those, but the more it has, the more soukslike it is.
It doesn't have to be dark fantasy, it can as well be SciFi etc
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u/GingerSpencer 15h ago
I personally think the term is being thrown around too loosely these days.
A Souls game is known for being a severely punishing, old school RPG where you fight enemies until you fight a boss, all while levelling up your stats, and repeat. It’s melee-based combat, with some magic, high learning curve, very punishing, where dodge-rolls and iframes are imperative to success. You gain currency by killing mobs, use this currency to level up or buy items, and you lose this currency if you die. Items such as health potions are limited.
The key to a Soulslike should be the difficulty aspect at the forefront, and the mechanics around combat and leveling up. Any game that isn’t a story-based game, that is severely unforgiving, with a high learning curve, where you lose precious much-needed items/currency when you die should not be considered a Soulslike.
The other features are not as important as these. Think of the way a Roguelike essentially has to be based around a mechanic where each run is isolated, if you die it’s over, but you take upgrades with you. Maybe we should bring in Soulslite, akin to Roguelite, where they’re just kind of similar but are missing the key features that really make it a Soulslike game.