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A Soulslike (also spelled Souls-like) is a subgenre of action role-playing games known for high levels of difficulty and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting. It had its origin in Demon's Souls and the Dark Souls series by FromSoftware, the themes and mechanics of which directly inspired several other games. Soulslike games developed by FromSoftware themselves have been specifically referred to as Soulsborne games, a portmanteau of Souls and Bloodborne. The "Soulslike" name has been adopted by a number of critics and developers. However, there have also been questions whether it is a true genre or a collection of shared mechanics.

While the description is typically applied to action role-playing games, the core concepts of high difficulty, repeated character death driving player knowledge and mastery of the game world, sparsity of save points, and giving information to the player through indirect, environmental storytelling are sometimes seen in games in very different genres, the mechanics of which are sometimes described as Soulslike.

Gameplay

Soulslike games typically have a high level of difficulty where repeated player character death is expected and incorporated as part of the gameplay and also losing all progress if certain checkpoints have not been reached. Soulslike games usually have means to permanently improve the player character's abilities as to be able to progress further, often by a type of currency that can be earned and spent, but may be lost or abandoned between deaths if not appropriately managed, similar to the souls in the Souls series.^[1][2][3] The need for repeated playthroughs can be viewed as a type of self-improvement for the player, either through gradual improvement of their character, or improving their own skills and strategies within the game.^[4] Salt and Sanctuary developer James Silva said Soulslike games provided "deliberate and meaningful exploration" of the entire game, including the game world, character improvement, and combat, through learning by repeated failures.^[5] Combat in Soulslike games may also be methodical, requiring the player to monitor stamina to avoid overexertion of their character,^[2] and often is based on "animation priority" actions that prevent the player from cancelling movement until the animation has been played out, leaving them vulnerable to enemy attacks.^[4] Souls and its related games developed by FromSoftware include multiplayer features such as the ability to write messages that can be seen and rated by other players, apparitions of other players, blood stains that allow viewing of other players' deaths, invasion of other players' worlds, and summoning of other players to one's own world for assistance.

Bonfire

A player character in Dark Souls using a bonfire.

Many Soulslike games include the concept of a bonfire which acts as a checkpoint. As introduced in Dark Souls, bonfires are small campfires of bones marked by a coiled sword, but may be contextualized differently in other games.^[6][7]

Activating a bonfire sets it as a respawn point for the player character should they die. They can also be used to restore health and magic as well as remove status effects, but these resting actions revives most enemies within the game world. Some bonfires can be used to level up and perform other actions such as repairing weapons. Players can also generally warp or fast travel between all bonfires discovered in the game world.

Bonfires were designed by Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki, saying that they were the single addition he was most excited about in the transition from Demon's Souls to its sequel. Serving as both a recovery and respawn point, Bonfires were designed to be a "powerful" aspect of gameplay and a place where players could gather together to share experiences and emotionally communicate. It was also designed to be a "place of warmth", and one of the few "heartwarming" locations in the game's world, expressing the feeling of dark fantasy that he was trying to create.^[8]

Since the introduction of the bonfires in Dark Souls, many games have adopted similar progression mechanics; serving either as a reset, leveling, or traveling beacon in games.^[9] This mechanic provides a means to avoid an outright failure state, where the player must restart the game completely and lose all progress, while still providing a risk-and-reward system to make the game challenging to the player.^[10]

Bonfires have inspired merchandise^[11] and been referenced within games outside the Soulslike genre via Easter eggs.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}

Common themes

Soulslike games are commonly defined by their dark fantasy setting and lack of overt storytelling, as well as their deep worldbuilding, with a captivating world being cited as key to spark players' desire to explore.^[17] Players are meant to discover bits and pieces of the game's lore over time via environmental storytelling, item descriptions and cryptic dialogue, piecing it together themselves to increase the game's sense of mystery. Despite their dark themes, the settings of Soulslikes sometimes feature elements of comic relief, such as unexpected interactions (e.g. petting a cat), humorous reactions from non-player characters, peculiar outfits and weapons, and unusual, often slapstick means of death, such as being eaten by a Mimic.^[18]

History

The Soulslike genre had its genesis in Demon's Souls (2009), developed by FromSoftware and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. It introduced the core tenets that would be followed by the Dark Souls series, such as the combat, death mechanics, multiplayer, storytelling, and dark fantasy setting. Dark Souls was released as a spiritual successor in 2011. Games considered to be Soulsborne include Bloodborne,^[19][20][21] Demon's Souls, the Dark Souls series, and Elden Ring.^[22][23][24] Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, also directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, is sometimes considered a Soulsborne game due to its similar design and shared mechanics, but differs in its setting and role-playing elements.

Other notable Soulslike games include Lords of the Fallen (2014),^[2][25] Titan Souls (2015),^[26] DarkMaus (2016),^[27] Salt and Sanctuary (2016),^[2][28] the Nioh series,^[2][29] The Surge series,^[2][30] Darksiders III (2018),^[2] Ashen (2018),^[2] Dark Devotion (2019),^[31] Remnant: From the Ashes (2019),^[2][32] Code Vein (2019),^[2][33] Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019),^[2][34] Hellpoint (2020),^[35] Mortal Shell (2020),^[2][36] Chronos: Before the Ashes (2020),^[37] Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (2022),^[38] Lies of P (2023),^[39] and Lords of the Fallen (2023).

Other games outside of the genre cited to have been influenced by the Souls series include The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011),^[40] Journey (2012),^[41] Shovel Knight (2014),^[26][42] Destiny (2014),^[43] The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015),^[44] God of War (2018),^[45] Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018),^[46] Dead Cells (2018),^[5] Death's Gambit (2018),^[47] and Blasphemous (2019).^[48] Similar death mechanics are used in Nier: Automata (2017),^[49] Hollow Knight (2017),^[2] and Fear & Hunger (2018).^[50]

Reception

Interviews with developers of Soulslike games revealed that they all thought of being classified as part of the genre as a positive thing that functioned as a useful description for players. However, some believed that it could be misleading, causing players to expect certain things and be disappointed when a game does not have them. An example of this was players being disappointed that Remnant: From the Ashes was primarily a shooter, despite being characterized as a Soulslike.^[18]

Austin Wood of PC Gamer criticized the Soulslike label, saying that treating Souls games as a template "misleads" players into believing that various games classified as such are similar to Souls when they are really different. He called the Soulslike label, along with the Metroidvania and roguelike labels, "jargon" that "ignores what makes [the games] unique".^[17] Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit also decried the Soulslikes as overly restrictive, forcing games to fall into a certain template and preventing their design from advancing. In responding to this argument, Bruno Dias of Vice disagreed, saying that Brown's comparison of Soulslikes with roguelikes was not apt because roguelikes were a hobbyist pursuit for a long time. He also said that Soulslikes did not need to advance yet as they did not have a marketability problem.^[51]

The Bonfire system of Dark Souls has been well received. Matthew Elliott of GamesRadar+ called them "a meaty cocktail of progress, exhaustion and joy". He also stated his belief that different types of Bonfires evoke different emotions - welcoming for Bonfires at the start of areas, numb for Bonfires after bosses and great relief for Bonfires at the end of difficult levels. He said that while other games evoke similar emotions with their save points, such as Resident Evil's save rooms, no other game does so as effectively.^[52] Joe Donnelly of Vice described their introduction as a "mark of genius". Saying that failure is redundant in games with autosave systems, he opined that Dark Souls "reinvented the save point", comparing reaching the next bonfire to receiving a badge of honor, and remarking that the Bonfire was a "central character" of the games as much as any NPC or monster.^[53]

Robert Zak of Kotaku praised the concept, saying that describing them as a "checkpoint" did not do the idea justice.^[54] Kat Bailey of VG247 called Dark Souls Bonfires a signifier of solitude, rather than companionship, like most campfires would be, but, despite that, also a symbol of warmth and safety. She remarked that other games had borrowed this imagery, singling out Shovel Knight as a particular example, despite the reluctance of Yacht Club Games to acknowledge the connection.^[55]

The lack of fast travel for a significant portion of the first Dark Souls has been particularly noted as giving the Bonfires of that game outsized significance. While Zak stated that he did not believe that the sequels to Dark Souls were ruined by convenient warping, he nevertheless said that such teleportation "undermined the unique role of the Bonfire", and "watered down their potency". Giving the particular example of the Blighttown bonfire, which is cut off from any others, he noted that it offered both solace and isolation, calling Bonfires "literal and figurative lights in the dark". He stated his opinion that, once the player lights a bonfire in Dark Souls, there is nowhere to go but forward, making it the "ultimate tension-building device". The lack of fast travel gives the player more motivation to "push on", instead of thinking of Majula and Firelink as merely "pitstops".^[54] Author M. J. Toswell described Bonfires in Dark Souls as evoking Samhain imagery, similar to the festival of Bonfire Night. Marking the veil between life and death, they give protection against invading souls of the dead, and offer the player a fraught opportunity for redemption.^[56]

See also

• Roguelike
• Metroidvania
• Category:Soulslike video games

References