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A Soulslike is a game built around a learnable risk-and-retry loop: you enter a dangerous space, commit to deliberate attacks and defensive choices, risk losing progress or currency when you die, study the failure, and try again with a better plan. Checkpoints, enemy respawns, shortcuts, exploration, boss gates and flexible character builds reinforce that loop.
Difficulty by itself is not enough. A game can be hard because it has fast reactions, large health bars or limited saves without being a Soulslike. The label describes how combat, death, world design and progression work together.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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ELDEN RING: Tarnished Edition - Nintendo Switch 2 | $79.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Elden Ring (PS5) (European Version) | $34.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Bandai Namco Entertainment Elden Ring (PS4) | $47.44 | Buy on Amazon |
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ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition | Digital | Nintendo Switch 2 Digital Code | $79.99 | Buy on Amazon |
The defining idea: failure produces useful information
The most reliable way to identify a Soulslike is to look at what the game asks you to do after a failed attempt. Death should reveal something: an attack was telegraphed, an enemy was approached from the wrong angle, a shortcut was overlooked, a resource was spent too early, or a build needs a different answer. The next attempt is meant to be informed by that knowledge.
Hidetaka Miyazaki described the intended Dark Souls loop in a 2011 PlayStation Blog interview as trying something, dying, learning from mistakes and eventually overcoming them. In a 2022 interview about Elden Ring, he said players should “use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes.” The design goal is not random punishment. It is a fair feedback loop in which a death makes the next decision clearer.
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That loop has several connected parts:
- Commitment: attacks, blocks, dodges, spells and item uses take time or positioning, so every input has a risk.
- Information: enemies communicate through animation, sound, timing and range, allowing patterns to be learned.
- Stakes: death can cost currency, experience, position or another resource, making an attempt matter.
- Reset: a checkpoint restores some supplies and resets ordinary enemies, creating a new run through familiar space.
- Mastery: the player uses what was learned to reach a boss, shortcut, item or area more reliably.
A title may change or omit one of these elements and still fit the family if the central learning-and-risk relationship remains intact.
Why “hard” is too broad a definition
Many games are difficult, but difficulty alone says little about their design. A precision platformer can demand hundreds of attempts while giving instant restarts and no persistent risk. A survival game can be punishing because hunger or equipment decay is severe. A character-action game can require faster reactions and longer combos than a Soulslike while offering a completely different failure model.
Soulslike difficulty is usually information-rich. A missed dodge, greedy attack or failed parry has a discernible cause. The player is expected to recognize the cause and alter timing, spacing, equipment or route selection. Miyazaki told Game Informer in 2024 that the team wanted players to understand why they were killed and feel that the outcome was justified. That standard separates deliberate challenge from opaque or arbitrary punishment.
Combat: commitment, timing and readable patterns
Actions have consequences
Soulslike combat is built around commitment. A sword swing, charged attack, heal, spell or item animation can leave the character vulnerable. Dodging too early may place you inside a follow-up strike; attacking one more time may prevent you from escaping; blocking may consume the resource needed for a counterattack. The game rewards choosing a safe opening rather than pressing buttons as quickly as possible.
Spacing matters as much as reaction speed. Weapon reach, enemy hitboxes, arena geometry and camera position determine whether an action connects or misses. A player may solve an encounter by standing just outside a sweeping attack, circling to an exposed side, using terrain to break line of sight or waiting for a recovery animation.
Pattern recognition is the main skill
Enemies commonly telegraph attacks with a wind-up, sound cue, stance change or distinctive movement. Learning which animation leads to a single strike, a delayed blow, a grab or a multi-hit sequence is more valuable than memorizing a universal dodge timing. Strong encounters mix familiar signals with variations so that the player must observe rather than follow a fixed script.
Blocking, parrying, dodging and positioning are common defensive options, but no single option is mandatory across the genre. Some games make shields central; others reward evasion or aggressive interruption. Stamina management and dodge rolls are frequent conventions, not admission requirements.
Death, currency and the “corpse run”
The classic recovery decision
In traditional Souls games, death commonly drops a currency or related resource at the location of death. The player can return to recover it, but dying again before reaching the drop usually loses it permanently. This creates a decision: take a dangerous route while carrying the pressure of the previous loss, or abandon the resource and make a safer attempt with nothing at stake.
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- Collaborating with George R.R. Martin to create the ELDEN RING mythos has been a genuinely delightful experience and a source of wonderful inspiration. The team is working hard to ensure that the world of ELDEN RING will be a fascinating place for players to explore, filled with peril and wonder from its furthest reaches to its lowest depths. This is a FromSoftware title through and through, rich in fantasy and RPG action. We sincerely hope you look forward to it.
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The dropped resource is not simply a punishment screen. It changes how you approach the next run. You might spend currency before entering a boss arena, clear nearby enemies instead of sprinting past them, equip a safer weapon, or decide that the amount is not worth an unnecessary risk.
Death systems vary
A corpse run is common, but it is not required. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice demonstrates a different economy: after an unrecovered death, the game removes half of the player’s money and half of accumulated skill experience automatically. There is no recoverable corpse to retrieve. The game keeps high-stakes learning while changing what death means and how players plan around it.
Other Soulslikes may reduce experience, damage equipment, consume a limited attempt, move the player to a checkpoint or impose no persistent loss at all. What matters is that failure affects the next decision in a meaningful way, not that every title uses a glowing pile of currency.
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Checkpoints make repeated attempts practical
Bonfires, lamps, shrines, benches and similar checkpoints divide a hostile world into manageable sections. Resting usually restores health and healing supplies, but it also resets ordinary enemies. That trade-off turns every rest into a choice: recover now and face the route again, or continue while wounded to preserve progress and avoid repopulating the area.
Miyazaki explained that Dark Souls added player-selected recovery points so a death would not always send players back to the beginning of an entire level. The checkpoint therefore serves two purposes: it is a safety net and a boundary for a repeated learning exercise.
Shortcuts turn knowledge into progress
Interconnected areas often contain doors, elevators, ladders or bridges that loop back to a previous checkpoint. Opening one can remove several minutes of routine travel from future attempts. Finding a shortcut is a form of progression even when the character gains no level or item, because the player now understands the geography and can reach the next challenge with less exposure.
Interconnection is common rather than universal. The Springer analysis of Souls conventions notes that most games loop areas and unlock shortcuts, while Demon’s Souls uses a level selector. Bloodborne combines linked areas with a central hub and warp points. These examples show that the function—manageable retries and meaningful navigation—matters more than one map format.
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The environment teaches both mechanics and fiction
Soulslikes often avoid explaining their world in a continuous sequence of cutscenes. Item descriptions, architecture, enemy placement, visual motifs, NPC fragments and the location of rewards provide pieces that the player must connect. A locked gate can suggest a future route; a corpse placement can hint at an ambush; a weapon description can reveal an old alliance.
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- A New Fantasy World – Journey through the Lands Between, a new fantasy world created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, creator of the influential Dark Souls video game series, and George R. R. Martin, author of The New York Times best-selling fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Unravel the mysteries of the Elden Ring’s power. Encounter adversaries with profound backgrounds, characters with their own unique motivations for helping or hindering your progress, and fearsome creatures
- World Exploration in the Lands Between – Elden Ring features vast fantastical landscapes and shadowy, complex dungeons that are connected seamlessly. Traverse the breathtaking world on foot or on horseback, alone or online with other players, and fully immerse yourself in the grassy plains, suffocating swamps, spiraling mountains, foreboding castles and other sites of grandeur on a scale never seen before in a FromSoftware title
- Genre-Defining Gameplay – Create your character in FromSoftware’s refined action-RPG and define your playstyle by experimenting with a wide variety of weapons, magical abilities, and skills found throughout the world. Charge into battle, pick off enemies one-by-one using stealth, or even call upon allies for aid. Many options are at your disposal as you decide how to approach exploration and combat
This approach is sometimes called environmental or contextual storytelling. It is not the same as having no story. The narrative is distributed across the space, so exploration and interpretation become part of progression. Miyazaki has said that level design should guide players who understand only fragments of the lore and their surroundings.
Bleak fantasy is optional
Many prominent examples use ruined kingdoms, horror imagery or melancholic themes, but a dark-fantasy setting is not a mechanical requirement. A science-fiction, modern, colorful or otherwise different game can be a Soulslike if it preserves the characteristic relationship between deliberate play, risk, repeated attempts and discovery.
Bosses as tests and progression gates
Bosses concentrate the genre’s demands into a high-pressure encounter. They commonly block a major route, unlock a new region or mark a change in the story. Bandai Namco’s overview of Elden Ring describes bosses that use large arenas, extended reach, multiple phases and attacks that test both combat fluency and preparation.
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A successful strategy usually combines three kinds of reading:
- Move recognition: identify the visual or audio cue for each attack and its possible follow-ups.
- Positioning: learn where to stand so that a missed attack creates a safe opening rather than a trap.
- Resource control: decide when to heal, use a consumable, summon help or spend a limited buff.
Bosses can also function as build checks without requiring one specific build. A resistant enemy may encourage a different damage type, a close-range fighter may need a ranged option, and a slow weapon may require a more patient opening. The point is to adjust the plan, not necessarily to replace the character.
Builds, equipment and multiple solutions
Stats, weapons, armor, spells, consumables and upgrade paths let players answer the same problem in different ways. A heavy weapon may stagger an enemy but leave fewer safe attack windows. A light weapon may allow faster repositioning while demanding more hits. Ranged attacks, status effects, shields, buffs and summons can change the risk profile of an encounter.
Dark Souls emphasizes many weapon types with distinct characteristics. Bloodborne uses fewer conventional physical weapons, but each can transform into alternate forms and receive gem customization. These systems make experimentation part of mastery: the player learns not only an enemy’s moveset but also which tools fit their preferred timing and tolerance for risk.
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Build variety does not mean every option is equally effective in every situation. It means the game supports more than one legitimate route through its problems. A player can often compensate for a difficult matchup through preparation, a different weapon, a respec, an upgrade or assistance from another system.
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Common signals versus optional conventions
The following distinction prevents the label from becoming a rigid checklist.
| Usually strong evidence of a Soulslike | Frequent but optional conventions |
|---|---|
| Deliberate action combat with meaningful commitment | Stamina management |
| Learning through repeated attempts and readable failure | Dodge rolls |
| Meaningful death or resource risk | A currency corpse run |
| Checkpoints that reset at least part of the world state | Bleak fantasy or horror themes |
| Exploration involving shortcuts, secrets or gated routes | Fully interconnected maps |
| Demanding encounters, often including bosses | Co-op, invasions or other online systems |
| Progression that supports more than one build or tactic | Opaque lore and item-description storytelling |
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A game that omits several optional conventions can still fit the category. Conversely, a game that includes stamina, rolling and a dark setting but lacks the learning-and-risk structure may only resemble the surface style.
How major examples change the formula
| Game or pattern | What it keeps | What it changes | What the variation demonstrates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark Souls | Deliberate combat, death learning, checkpoints, interconnected routes, builds and bosses | Establishes the reference package | Baseline loop and level connectivity |
| Bloodborne | Linked world, difficult pattern-reading combat, replayability and builds | Transforming weapons, fewer physical weapons, more aggressive defensive assumptions, and a hub connected to linked areas | Combat tempo and weapon customization can redefine the feel without removing the learning loop |
| Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | High-stakes learning, demanding encounters and FromSoftware-style level design | Resurrection, automatic death losses, an action-adventure framing and a distinct combat system | The death economy and combat identity can differ substantially |
| Elden Ring | Boss mastery, builds, exploration, summons and repeated learning | Open-world freedom, optional detours, Spirit Ashes and more ways to prepare for or bypass a difficult wall | World scale and player agency can expand while the core loop remains recognizable |
Is Elden Ring a Soulslike?
Yes. Elden Ring retains deliberate combat, pattern-based bosses, build choices, checkpoints, meaningful exploration and repeated learning through failure. Its open world changes the order and geography of those systems. If a boss is too strong, you can explore another region, collect upgrades, change equipment, use Spirit Ashes or return later. Those options reduce the chance that one obstacle becomes a mandatory immediate wall, but they do not remove the risk-and-retry structure.
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Sekiro is often grouped with Soulslikes because it shares demanding encounters, checkpoints, exploration and a strong learning loop. Its combat identity is different: the player is expected to engage with a distinct posture-and-timing system rather than rely on the broader weapon, shield, spell and stat combinations associated with Dark Souls.
Its death economy also changes the familiar pattern. Resurrection can preserve an attempt in situations where a conventional Souls character would be dead, while an unrecovered death removes half of money and half of skill experience automatically instead of creating a corpse run. The result is a related design philosophy, not a clone of the same rules.
A practical test for labeling an unfamiliar game
Ask these questions in order:
- When you die, can you identify a mistake, a pattern you failed to read or a preparation choice that mattered?
- Does the game make you commit to attacks, defense, movement or resource use instead of rewarding frantic inputs alone?
- Does death alter your next attempt through lost currency, experience, position, supplies or another meaningful consequence?
- Do checkpoints create repeated runs by restoring some resources and resetting at least part of the world?
- Does exploration reveal shortcuts, hidden routes, useful items or story context rather than merely connect combat arenas?
- Do major encounters test adaptation, positioning and preparation, often acting as progression gates?
- Can equipment, stats or tactics provide more than one credible answer to a problem?
If most answers are yes, “Soulslike” is a useful description even when the game has no stamina bar, no dodge roll, no corpse run or no medieval setting. If the only answer is that the game is difficult, the label is probably too broad.
The bottom line
A Soulslike is defined by a relationship between challenge and learning. The player takes a calculated risk, receives understandable feedback from failure, uses checkpoints and exploration to make another attempt, and gradually gains both character power and personal mastery. Combat style, death penalties, map structure, storytelling and assistance systems can all vary. The family resemblance survives when those variations still make informed retrying—not raw difficulty—the center of play.
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