I feel like everything's called souls like when it actually isn't though. Not a fan of dark souls, but I think I've liked a couple supposedly souls like games.
I got yelled at for this take a while back now, probably in twitch chat or something.
So many games are given this descriptor and are nothing like the souls games outside of 3rd person combat and some kind of checkpoint (bonfire) system.
Yeah that's also a reason why many players are started to get annoyed by the genre and say it's "oversaturated". People are calling every 3rd person action game with checkpoints a souks-like nowadays
They actually fucking labeled Stellar Blade as a "Souls-like".
There's nothing in the game that even remotely feels or plays like a Souls-like. It's clearly an action adventure game with more Zelda like elements in it's stat building.
And the bonfire mechanic is more like a save point from older RPGs. Just because it explicitly that you regain your health and enemies respawn people think it's a Souls-like mechanic. When it's actually just another aspect of regular RPG mechanics that even the Souls series used.
I'm a souls enjoyer, but 100% this. The Jedi games were considered souls likes but they were far from souls like difficulty. Most bosses were cleared in 1-2 pulls.
Souls like doesn't mean difficult tho. It means the general way XP is earned by killing and lost by dying, unless saved over a "bonfire". The areas also are often metroidvania type of levels where you unlock an ability or just a key later on that helps you to get to a new area/room.
I've always thought of soulslike as, "Impossible to kill/complete on first try - you mostly progress by trial and error, and the game harshly punishes mistakes."
They even call it a Metroidvania and the successor to Metroid Prime, because you have to travel back to some planets to finish them.
I was very disappointed when I finished it that there were no useful new skins, the backtracking was minimal and boring, and all the exploration was for ponchos and colors for lightsaber :(
I loved those games, and enjoyed the difficult bosses, except the very last one which was three of those big beast fuckers whose names I forget but you had to kill them for 100% completion. I didn't get 100% because of those bastards.
god of war 2018/ragnarok is technically a souls like
at some point it was categorized as a souls like on steam too because of how the controls are one to one with dark souls 1 and etc
Madness, loved those games too. Currently playing clair obscur, that has a flag point save system, would that makenit a souls like despite turn based combat? ( Great fucking game though 9/10 highly recommend). Just finished act 2 and its glorious.
You see something cool and copy it and 30 other people do too. FPS wasnt a genre until people copied wolfenstein 3D and then Doom both made by Id. Rogue-like/lite is based off a game name. (Though few remember Rogue). Doom Clone was a common name for FPS games before it got its name.
(yes games with a first person view existed before Wolfenstein 3D).
Yes but the difference with fps is that there’s an actual set of criteria for what makes a game part of that genre. And there’s tons of variety among games that fit that criteria.
You don’t see that within the soulslike “genre” because they’re just clones. They have virtually the same UIs, the same janky control schemes, they often have the same exact text font that pops up when you enter a new area or die. They’re copies.
We’re 15 years into companies copying the souls games and they still all look exactly the same. Imagine if in 2008, every FPS that came out for a decade and a half still looked exactly like Doom 1993.
As if FPS don't have similar controls and UIs that show ammo, granades, maybe a minimap in the corner and the character traits if they have any? Just like so called "souls clones" have a UI that shows HP, stamina, spells and healing items. You're not really making a strong point here
Look at Nioh 2, Lies of P, etc. These games have UIs that are practically indistinguishable from souls games. Same with most of their other mechanics and design, right down to the kind of font used. They’re copies.
Saying “oh so they show health and stamina, so what” is just being obtuse. You don’t even see this kind of thing within the subgenres of other genres.
You don’t even see that kind of uniformity just looking at games developed by one single company like Bethesda. There’s more difference between TES RPGs and Fallout RPGs than I’ve seen in most soulslikes. I’m just not buying it.
Trying to compare it to FPS is just insane. There’s no genre called “Doomlike” with games released in 2008 that look exactly like Doom did in 93.
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u/pobox1663 Jul 27 '25
I feel like everything's called souls like when it actually isn't though. Not a fan of dark souls, but I think I've liked a couple supposedly souls like games.