Soulslike as a Genre

Soulslike is a relatively new concept in the scheme of genres given that it only came about after the release of the hit title Dark Souls by FromSoftware. This is because, as you can imagine, Soulslike’s genre is roughly defined as being like Dark Souls. However, Dark Souls itself is just an action-rpg, so what makes a game copying it nothing more than either a blatant ripoff or another action-rpg? To be more specific, this genre tends to be defined by some of Dark Souls’s most notable traits. These can range anywhere from the atmosphere or storytelling to the mechanics and progression system. Unfortunately, many developers (and many more journalists) tend to miss these points whenever they call something Soulslike.

The trouble is, Soulslike is more commonly (and erroneously) defined as “hard.” It’s no secret that Dark Souls pioneered the new generation of difficult games, harmoniously marrying punishing combat with deceptively simple controls, but what does tend to elude developers is why that worked so well. Normally I would write about a game that does a great job depicting the genre and then go into one that may not have hit the mark, but I think this discussion warrants a different approach. Rather than saying how one handled it well, I think it’s better to explain what all games that aspire to be Soulslike tend to miss.

Challenge

To address the elephant in the room: Yes. Dark Souls is hard. It is famous for being hard. It tends to divide gamers from those who play just to have fun and ones who want to truly feel they mastered a game. There have been debates over whether it is too hard and is excluding gamers who don’t want to feel so punished playing a popular title. This isn’t the reason Dark Souls is so groundbreaking. Any developer can make a room flooded with lava that drops the player straight into it and call it “hard.”

The way a proper Soulslike handles its difficulty is by making it handle consistently and predictably. When a player dies in a Soulslike, they always blame themselves. “If only I was a little faster!” “I knew I shouldn't have done that!” “I was too impatient!” These comments are very common when playing a Soulslike because the rules of the game are set in stone from the moment the player is put into the world. Enemies have incredibly punishing mechanics, but only if the player does not respect their patterns.

For example, most bosses in quality Soulslike games have fairly high health but also deal high damage. The trick is that their “tells” are often exaggeratively over pronounced. If they are going to deal chip damage, they may simply whack with a sword without much forewarning, but anything that is going to kill the player has a long leadup with plenty of lights and sound effects. If the player dies to it, they didn’t respect the warning. This is most often seen in the windows of attack. Healing in a Soulslike tends to take about as long as a good attack run. An impatient player may feel like one more attack run is all they need to win, so they disrespect a boss’s tells and forgo healing for that one last attack. Then they die and blame themselves. “I should have just healed.”

Atmosphere

Now for a bit more of the subtlety. A well-designed boss fight may get a game’s foot in the door of being considered a Soulslike, but what often sets the tone long before your first encounter is the world. Typically quiet and even a little bit dreary, Soulslikes tend to put an emphasis on the story being about the setting rather than the character. The character rarely is the point of interest, and therefore we rarely get much about them. Rather, the story is instead told through context clues from either item descriptions or the level layout itself. You don’t need the character to say “that’s a lot of dead bodies, people must have been fighting here. That makes me sad” for the player to see dead bodies with mournful music playing in the background. The player understands that from the atmosphere.

Likewise, the gameplay lends itself to the feeling of being lost or hopelessness. Speaking NPCs are much rarer in a Soulslike. If the player does see one, the chances are they are going to offer only more puzzle pieces to the story that the player is meant to figure out. The beauty, though, is that they do not have to figure it out. With the gameplay being the overall driving force, the world is offered to those who want to learn more. Everything from the save points to the health items tend to offer an explanation of the world. Does your Soulslike use potions for healing? Why? Does it use blood? Why? Does your character drink blood?

The Example

So, obviously, the greatest example of a Soulslike is Dark Souls. They handled their combat beautifully, and it’s worth looking at how and why. One example is the concept of dropping your experience and picking it back up adds a lot to the tension. Dying is often a fairly modest punishment in games, usually only sending you back to the beginning of a level. In Dark Souls, the experience you gathered is left at your corpse. In order to retrieve your experience, you must race back to your corpse and collect it without dying lest it all be lost permanently. This adds a wonderful amount of urgency and paranoia in an elegantly simple way.

The atmosphere is also gorgeous. The music tells the story just as well as anything else, and it’s done by having almost none at all. When you are in a genuinely safe location, there is often a very faint melody that gives you the sense of security. Otherwise, there is borderline none. The only other time you hear music is the thunderous chorus of boss music that gets your blood pumping for your epic showdown. This tends to be how they handle the art as well. Everything is washed out in fairly dreary colors until something of import is meant to catch your eye. Take Blighttown for example. Everything is sickly green and brown until you make it to the boss fight which is rich in vibrant reds and oranges from her fire spells. These details help to set the tone for every moment.

The Misinterpretation

This is where the phrase “the Dark Souls of ‘X’” becomes inappropriate. Just because a game is hard does not make it a Soulslike. Games like Cuphead have been called “the Dark Souls of platformers,” but that in and of itself is ridiculous. Cuphead is hard, no doubt, but other than that is has nothing in common. One is an action-rpg with leveling systems, sandbox environments, and rich lore. One is a platformer bullet hell. This doesn’t mean Cuphead is bad or easy, but there’s simply no point in comparing them. It is just a hard bullet hell. Likewise, a game that is meaninglessly punishing with no redeeming qualities may be defined as a Soulslike, but misses the entire reason the genre is popular in the first place.

By that same token, many people have taken to defining Dark Souls itself as a Metroidvania. This also comes from people ignorant of what those genres are defined by. Metroidvania’s are often defined by their progression system in exploration and skills; showing the player dead ends that they can only surpass by unlocking new abilities. Dark Souls has no such element, and instead is rather linear in comparison to a Metroidvania. Once again, that doesn’t make either genre bad, but it muddies the waters with how to separate game concepts. Someone who likes Dark Souls may not necessarily like a Metroidvania and vice versa.

Overall

This may seem a bit soapboxy rather than a deep dive on the genre, but that’s because it deserves a bit of defense over these past few years. I, myself, have gone into many games defined as “Soulslike” with great anticipation only to find out it is just an action adventure with poorly balanced mechanics. Hearing an advertisement saying, “Is this the Dark Souls of shooters??” tended to get my hopes up until I played them and realized it was just a shooter that was challenging.

I think Dark Souls created a wonderful niche that I would be delighted to see more from, but it’s important to make sure the developers understand what they are trying to accomplish. If someone makes a game that is moody and challenging, that’s wonderful. If they claim it is a Soulslike and try to cram in unnecessary features or advertise to the wrong audience because it’s a popular buzzword? That’s very disappointing. Developers need to know their genre, and if they insist on making it a Soulslike, do it right.