Souls-like
Game genre theme
A variant of action-adventure/RPG games popularized by FromSoftware with their Dark Souls and Bloodborne games. Superficially similar to hack&slash games but with much slower, tactical pace.
39
games
8platforms
Name variations: Souls game, Soulsborne
PS4 2016-03-15
SWTC 2018-05-25
WIN 2016-03-24
WIN 2024-03-14
X360 2011-10-04
WIN 2018-12-06
WIN 2016-05-17
PS4 2016-03-24
PS3 2014-04-11
WIN 2017-03-28
WIN 2015-04-01
WIN 2022-02
Traits:
* Death penalty. Usually in form of dropping your currently unused experience or equivalent at point of death, this can be recovered as long as you don't die again.
* Difficult and numerous boss fights
* Combat revolves around managing stamina or similar energy pool for attacks, blocking and dodging
* No manual saves, and only one save slot per character.
* No fail state
Likely traits:
* 4+ different attacks per weapon, riposte (counterattack), and blocking.
* Experience or other upgrade system which is used for the above death penalty
* Ability to parry, backstab, and riposte
* Exploration
* Equipment dictates most of character power
* Lots of backtracking, but this can be reduced by opening of shortcuts
Lesser traits:
* Metroidvania
* Slight non-linearity in what you tackle next
* Third-person
* Death penalty. Usually in form of dropping your currently unused experience or equivalent at point of death, this can be recovered as long as you don't die again.
* Difficult and numerous boss fights
* Combat revolves around managing stamina or similar energy pool for attacks, blocking and dodging
* No manual saves, and only one save slot per character.
* No fail state
Likely traits:
* 4+ different attacks per weapon, riposte (counterattack), and blocking.
* Experience or other upgrade system which is used for the above death penalty
* Ability to parry, backstab, and riposte
* Exploration
* Equipment dictates most of character power
* Lots of backtracking, but this can be reduced by opening of shortcuts
Lesser traits:
* Metroidvania
* Slight non-linearity in what you tackle next
* Third-person
Popular tags
actionadventure actionrpg hackandslash metroidvania tacticalParent group
Games by year
The first Souls-like video game was released on February 21, 2001.
Namco Bandai, Ska Studios and Bandai Namco Entertainment published most of these games.