What Makes a Game a Soulslike? It Goes Beyond Hard
Difficulty gets all the press, but the soulslike genre is defined by a much richer set of design ideas. Here is what actually unites these games.
The Word Came From a Studio, Not a Review Score
The term soulslike traces back to FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls and the Dark Souls series that followed. Players noticed that these games shared so many specific design decisions that a shorthand was useful. The word stuck. What it does not mean, despite years of headlines treating the two as synonymous, is simply “a very hard game.”
Plenty of games are brutally difficult and share nothing else with Dark Souls. Plenty of soulslikes have been completed by players who would not describe themselves as hardcore. Difficulty is a symptom. The design systems underneath it are the actual genre.
The Core Pillars That Define the Genre
Deliberate, stamina-gated combat. In a soulslike, almost every offensive and defensive action costs a resource, usually stamina. You cannot swing endlessly or roll through every attack for free. Each decision carries weight because resources are finite within any given exchange. This pacing separates the genre from faster action games where the rhythm is about chaining attacks rather than choosing them carefully.
A death economy built on risk and reward. The Souls games introduced a loop where dying drops your accumulated currency (souls, echoes, vigor, whatever the specific game calls it) at the spot you died. You can retrieve it on your next run, but dying again before you do means losing it permanently. This mechanic is not about punishment for its own sake. It creates genuine tension in every encounter and makes each run feel meaningful. Soulslikes that deviate from this exact mechanic usually replace it with something structurally similar: a reason to care about dying beyond a simple game-over screen.
Interconnected, discovery-driven level design. The worlds in soulslike games are typically dense and looping. A door you pass early opens from the other side an hour later. Shortcuts reveal themselves as rewards for exploration. The map is a puzzle as much as the combat is. This stands in contrast to linear corridor design or wide-open open worlds without meaningful connective tissue.
Sparse, environmental storytelling. Soulslikes tend to be stingy with exposition. Lore lives in item descriptions, architecture, the placement of bodies, and conversations with NPCs who speak in fragments. Players piece the story together rather than watching it delivered. This approach asks more of the player’s attention and rewards curiosity in a way that a cutscene-heavy narrative does not.
Checkpoints that reset the world. Bonfires, lanterns, benches, whatever the specific game uses, these rest points restore the player’s health and resources but also respawn every enemy in the area. The trade-off is constant. Safety costs progress, and progress costs safety.
Why Difficulty Is a Result, Not a Rule
Think about what those pillars actually produce. Combat where every swing matters will punish carelessness. A death penalty that risks your resources will make you nervous. A world you can get lost in will occasionally put you in encounters you are not ready for. The difficulty is emergent, generated by systems working together rather than by a designer cranking a number up.
This distinction matters because it explains why accessibility options do not necessarily break the genre. A game can slow enemy attacks or reduce stamina costs and remain structurally a soulslike. The architecture of risk, discovery, and deliberate action is still present. Conversely, a game that simply has one-hit kills and no checkpoints is not a soulslike just because it is punishing.
A Genre That Keeps Refining Itself
The soulslike label has expanded to cover games that push and pull at individual pillars. Some lean harder into the RPG character-building side. Some strip it back toward pure action. Some experiment with the death loop, making death itself part of the narrative mechanics. What holds the genre together is that all of these games are in conversation with the same cluster of ideas.
Knowing what those ideas are makes you a sharper reader of game recommendations, a more useful contributor to genre debates, and honestly a better player walking into one of these games for the first time. The challenge ahead of you is not random cruelty. It is a set of systems that will reward you for learning their logic.
What is a soulslike game?
A soulslike is an action-RPG that borrows a specific cluster of design ideas from FromSoftware's Souls series: deliberate, stamina-gated combat; a risk-reward resource loop tied to death; interconnected level design; and sparse, environmental storytelling. Difficulty is a byproduct of those systems, not a requirement on its own.
Does a game have to be hard to be a soulslike?
Not exactly. The challenge in soulslike games comes from precise, committed combat and steep penalties for dying, but many games in the genre offer assist modes or lower-difficulty options without losing their soulslike identity. The defining trait is the design philosophy, not a specific difficulty rating.
What is the difference between a soulslike and a souls-inspired game?
Souls-inspired is a broader label for any game that borrows one or two ideas from the Souls series. A soulslike typically adopts most of the core pillars together: the combat pacing, the death economy, the world design, and the lore delivery. A game with punishing combat but linear levels might be souls-inspired without being a full soulslike.
Are Sekiro and Elden Ring soulslikes?
Elden Ring fits comfortably under the label. Sekiro is made by the same studio and shares the deliberate combat and death penalties, but its parry-focused system and lack of character building lead some to treat it as a distinct sub-style sometimes called a 'sekirolike.' Most players and critics still group it within the soulslike family.