What Is a Soulslike? From Demon's Souls to Elden Ring

"Soulslike" refers to games made in the vein of Dark Souls. Think of action RPGs that are hard, where you die often and push forward by learning a little more each time you die. At first it was closer to a nickname for games imitating a single series, but today it has become a subgenre made by developers in many countries.

In this post, we look at how the Soulslike is defined, where it began, what its common elements and variations are, and which games represent it. We then look at what to consider when designing for the genre and who it suits. For the broader history of action RPGs, see our post on action RPGs and hack and slash, and for RPGs in general, see the history of RPGs.

Definition and Core Appeal of the Soulslike

The Soulslike is a subgenre of the action RPG, characterized by large, enemy-filled worlds and storytelling through the environment. Dark fantasy settings are common but not required. The elements that make up the genre are roughly as follows.

• High difficulty and repeated death: Death is designed not as failure but as part of progress.
• Resources you can lose and recover: When you die, you drop your combined experience and currency (the "souls" in Dark Souls) on the spot, and you can get them back by returning there. Die again on the way, and they're gone for good.
• Sparse checkpoints: Resting at a checkpoint like Dark Souls' bonfires restores your health and lets you level up, but the enemies you've defeated also come back to life.
• Deliberate combat: You have to manage stamina, and attack animations can't be canceled midway, so swinging carelessly gets you punished.
• Indirect storytelling: Instead of long cutscenes, the world's backstory trickles out through item descriptions, short lines of dialogue, buildings, and scenery.

The core appeal is "the sense of achievement earned through mastery." A boss that once seemed impossible can be defeated once you learn its patterns. What makes the genre special is that what grows in the process is not just your character's stats but your own skill as a player. Exploration is the other appeal. There's great pleasure in physically realizing how the world fits together, such as the moment you open a shortcut door that leads back to the bonfire where you started.

Origins: Demon's Souls and Dark Souls

The Soulslike is regarded as a genre created and established by the Japanese developer FromSoftware and director Hidetaka Miyazaki. It began with Demon's Souls, released on the PlayStation 3 in 2009, and it was 2011's Dark Souls that made the genre widely known. The genre's name comes from Dark Souls as well. Dark Souls continued through a third entry in 2016, becoming a trilogy.

FromSoftware went on to release the gothic horror-flavored Bloodborne (2015), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019), set in Sengoku-era Japan, and Elden Ring (2022), which incorporated an open world. Fans sometimes call the "Souls" series and Bloodborne together "Soulsborne." Elden Ring combined Soulslike combat with vast open-world exploration and swept Game of the Year at many award shows that year. We cover Elden Ring separately in our Elden Ring post.

FromSoftware's games also have distinctive online features. You can read and rate messages left by other players, and touching a bloodstain lets you see how someone else died at that spot. You can summon other players for help or, conversely, invade someone else's world. These are devices that make a single-player game feel like "I'm not the only one struggling."

Common Elements and Variations

Even games labeled Soulslike tweak different axes.

The term Soulslike is sometimes used more broadly than the genre itself. When traits like high difficulty, learning through death, sparse save points, and indirect storytelling show up in a completely different genre, people say just that part is "Soulslike." There are also many games, such as Hollow Knight and Dead Cells, that are said to be influenced by the Souls series but are not usually classified as Soulslikes.

Representative Games

Many other games are also classified in this genre, including Lords of the Fallen (2014, 2023), Code Vein (2019), Mortal Shell (2020), Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (2023), and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers (2025). It's notable that two of the games on the list come from Korean developers.

Design Points

1. Difficulty must be "fair"

Soulslike difficulty is only fun when the player accepts it. Big enemy attacks need wind-up animations, and players should be able to explain for themselves why they died. If they feel "I got hit because I got greedy," they'll try again; if they feel "the game is unfair," they'll quit.

2. Tuning the cost of death

Recovering dropped currency creates tension, but if the cost is too high, it turns into frustration. Checkpoint spacing, the walking distance back to the boss room, and how much you lose if the recovery fails all have to be tuned together. That's why many recent games put a checkpoint right before the boss.

3. Level design that gives you something to learn

A path you've traveled once should get easier the next time. It's important to build maps so that remembering trap locations, ambushing enemies, and shortcuts itself feels like growth. The moment a shortcut reconnects you to a checkpoint is a big reward.

4. Story in fragments

When the world's backstory is scattered through item descriptions and scenery, players become immersed in the world as they piece the fragments together themselves. Still, the game should communicate at least a minimal goal and direction so players don't get lost and burned out.

5. Accessibility and detours

There are ways to provide paths for stuck players while preserving the genre's identity. For example, letting them summon other players or NPCs for help, or letting them explore other regions first to grow stronger before coming back. Thanks to its open-world structure, Elden Ring lets you leave a place where you're stuck and explore other regions first.

Who Should Play Them

• People who love the sense of achievement from finally overcoming a tough challenge
• People who enjoy analyzing and practicing boss patterns
• People who prefer exploration and stories they discover themselves over explanations
• People who want to tackle the same section in different ways by changing builds and gear combinations

On the other hand, if you want to follow a story comfortably or find repeating the same section very stressful, you're better off starting with a regular action RPG that offers difficulty options.

Soulslikes Today

When the term "Soulslike" first spread, it drew criticism. Around 2017, some outlets and critics argued that the label boxed genuinely different games into one template and held back the genre's development. On the other hand, in 2020 developer interviews, most accepted the classification as a useful description for players. They did note, however, that it sometimes leads to disappointment when expectations don't match reality, as with the shooting-focused Remnant: From the Ashes.

Today, the Soulslike is a genre made by developers in many regions, including Japan, Europe, Korea, and China. In 2026, sequels such as Nioh 3 and Code Vein II came out as well. The genre's elements have also seeped into 2D action games like Hollow Knight and big-budget action games like the Star Wars Jedi series. As "a structure for learning through death," rather than difficulty itself, comes to be seen as the genre's essence, the Soulslike seems likely to keep evolving in many forms.

References

• Soulslike – Wikipedia
• Demon's Souls – Wikipedia
• Dark Souls – Wikipedia
• Elden Ring – Wikipedia
• Lies of P – Wikipedia
• Action role-playing game – Wikipedia
• FromSoftware official site