Stellar Blade
A game about the stunning android Eve from South Korean developers at Shift Up studio is an action RPG that borrowed core elements of “soulslikes” but made them player-friendly.
The combat here is captivating: during battles, it is important to react to enemy attacks in time and parry them, use strike combos, and dodge enemy onslaughts. You won't be able to just “button-mash” through enemies, but you don't need to be overly cautious either: there is no stamina bar, parry windows are very forgiving, and there are skills that make fights noticeably easier. For example, you can increase the time window for deflecting an enemy attack, making parrying even simpler.
In addition, the game features difficulty selection to make the playthrough fun, and defeat in battle won't lead to frustration since you don't lose experience and items. In some cases, you can even revive once right in the middle of battle, which makes the game even easier—especially in boss fights.
Star Wars Jedi duology
Two games about Cal Kestis—a padawan who survived Order 66—fit the criteria of this selection perfectly.
The gameplay of both installments is very similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, as the combat focuses on parries and ability usage. Exploration is also very reminiscent of FromSoftware games, but with the addition of “metroidvania” elements, which complemented the familiar formula wonderfully.
However, the combat here doesn't make you suffer. You can adjust the difficulty level to your liking: on high levels, a hell that forgives no mistakes awaits you; on medium, the game will delight you with engaging and balanced fights; and on lower levels, encounters won't cause issues while still remaining interesting.
In the second installment, the gameplay was significantly improved: the combat system became deeper, featuring more stances and combos, while world exploration was made even more pleasant. For instance, the ability to fast travel between meditation points was sorely missed in the first game.
Black Myth: Wukong
A project from Chinese studio Game Science, based on the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”, continues its story. The game combines “soulslike” elements with a more dynamic combat system and unique mechanics.
At the player's disposal are spells that allow freezing enemies, creating clones, or buffing oneself. The transformation system stands out, allowing you to briefly assume the form of a previously defeated boss to gain an advantage in battle.
Fights require studying boss behavior through trial and error. The project is often described as a “boss rush” where adversaries are divided into story, optional, and secret bosses. There is no difficulty selection and no leniency toward mistakes, but the game compensates for this with dynamics and spectacle, providing the player with many tools for an aggressive playstyle without worrying about deaths.
Lies of P
This “soulslike” is set in the city of Krat, where puppets have rebelled against humans. You play as a puppet boy who tries to figure out what is happening and become human. The project uses motifs from the fairy tale of “Pinocchio” but subverts them: the choice between truth and lies in dialogues affects character development and determines the ending.
Due to its gloominess and gothic style, the game is often compared to Bloodborne, but with steampunk elements and mechanical enemies instead of eerie beasts. You can expect combat focused on parrying, the familiar loss of experience upon death, and returning to bonfire equivalents with respawning enemies. However, with the release of the Overture expansion, the ability to change the difficulty level was introduced: from a very easy story mode to classic hardcore. Finishing the game is no longer a major issue.
Of particular interest is the weapon system: almost any “weapon” can be disassembled into a blade and a handle, which determine damage and attack type, as well as the moveset and stat scaling. All of this can be combined to craft a tool that fits your playstyle. The protagonist's mechanical arm can also be customized by installing modules that grant situational abilities.
Mortal Shell 2
A new take on the “soulslike” genre from Cold Symmetry studio. The developers made a very dynamic and accessible project by getting rid of the stamina bar and adding items that alter difficulty. Several modes are available in total: from easy, which disables achievements, to increased difficulty and auto-balancing, which weakens enemies on its own if you die often, and strengthens them if you proceed without dying.
Combat now feels different: instead of the “hit-and-run-recover” tactic, battle turns into an aggressive dance where pressure on the enemy converts into the resource needed to activate abilities. Yet the game doesn't turn into mindless “button-mashing”—enemies severely punish mistakes, and reacting to their actions in time is still necessary.
The sequel has grown significantly in scale compared to the compact first game: an open world has appeared with many optional dungeons, shortcuts, and secrets. Even if navigation can be confusing in places, and the density of unique content in some locations is lower than one might desire.
Lords of the Fallen (2023)
A striking example of developer redemption: upon release, the project was heavily criticized, but after the massive 2.0 update, it became significantly more accessible. Gameplay was rebalanced, controls were improved, and flexible modifiers were added to adjust difficulty: you can enable randomized enemy spawns, permadeath mode, and other options.
Although combat still demands caution and stamina management from the player, encounters have become easier, as the developers adjusted enemy density in locations and made bosses fairer.
The project stands out with its unique dual-world mechanic: the game features the ability to switch between the realms of the living and the dead. They coexist with each other, and sometimes it is necessary to travel between them to advance through a location. And if you die in the world of the living, you get a second chance by finding yourself in the realm of the dead rather than back at a “bonfire”.
The game has a low barrier to entry and is an excellent fit for those who want to experience “soulslikes” for the first time.
The First Berserker: Khazan
A hardcore “soulslike” from Neople studio, featuring a combat system close to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The emphasis is on parrying, dodging, and counterattacking, and a single mistake can lead to severe health loss or being stunned due to stamina depletion.
Boss battles here are extremely challenging but fair: the villains' attacks are well telegraphed, and dangerous moves have visual glows or audio cues, so you immediately understand where you made a mistake. Upon death, you lose experience and must retrieve it by returning to the site of your demise, just like in conventional games of the genre.
However, even upon defeat by a boss, you earn experience and gain skill points for perfect parries and other technical actions. Furthermore, in June 2025, the difficulty system was reworked: two more levels—“Novice” and “Hardcore”—were added to the two main difficulty tiers (“Normal” and “Easy”). Thus, the game simultaneously became friendlier for casual players and offered a new level of challenge for battle-hardened gamers.
Death’s Door
An interesting experiment answering the question of what would happen if classic The Legend of Zelda were crossed with a “soulslike”. The result is an isometric action game that challenges the player without punishing them for defeats. While there are no difficulty settings here, you lose nothing upon death, respawning at the nearest save point, of which there are plenty, including right before boss arenas.
The combat system is straightforward: you have light and heavy attacks, dodges, archery, and magic. Enemies' and bosses' moves take some getting used to, but they are clearly distinguishable, and after a couple of tries it becomes clear what needs to be done.
Exploration can also surprise you. The game features metroidvania elements: periodically, you gain new abilities that unlock access to previously blocked paths. You can find plenty of well-hidden secrets, although without a map it is possible to get lost.
Another Crab's Treasure
One of the most colorful and friendly “soulslikes”. This game takes the genre's core framework (losing currency on death, tough bosses, and familiar combat) but gives the player unprecedented control over difficulty.
There is an Assist Mode here that allows fine-tuning the gameplay to your preference, which does not affect achievements in any way. You can:
- reduce incoming damage or enemy health;
- disable currency loss on death;
- slow down game speed, making enemies predictable;
- give the protagonist a gun that kills any enemy (including bosses) in one shot.
And instead of stamina management, here you need to deal damage to fill the stagger bar beneath the enemy's health.
The project is built on the foundation of FromSoftware games, but embraces a different philosophy. For instance, instead of grim, dying worlds, we have a whimsical satire on environmental pollution, and when changing the difficulty, the game displays a message: “Another Crab's Treasure is intended to be a challenging game. But everyone plays differently! If the difficulty is preventing you from having fun, don't hesitate to turn on these options”.
Code Vein duology
An anime-styled “soulslike” with all that implies: a classic combat system based on stamina management, bonfire analogues, experience loss upon death, punishing boss fights, and exploring atmospheric locations.
The game stands out with its interesting companion system, which serves as an alternative to difficulty settings. You can bring along an AI companion who makes gameplay much more accessible, as they can buff or even revive your character right in combat. Or you can forgo them to get a classic hardcore experience, since bosses do not scale based on the number of characters in your party.
Yet the project's main feature is the “Blood Code” system that replaced traditional classes. Each code comes with a unique set of stats and active gifts, and you can switch between them at any moment. Furthermore, mastered gifts can be transferred to other codes, creating highly flexible builds.
The second installment introduced an Elden Ring-style open world and a time travel mechanic, while the “Blood Code” and companion systems were expanded. This gave players more freedom, albeit with flaws such as empty locations and the abandonment of multiplayer mode.
Steelrising
An AA project from renowned studio Spiders, set in an alternate Paris during the French Revolution, where you play as a mechanical dancer battling an army of automatons.
Just like in Another Crab's Treasure, there is a built-in Assist Mode here that allows you to selectively disable almost all of the genre's “penalties”. In it, you can adjust incoming damage to the protagonist and stamina recovery speed, tweak parry and dodge timings, or completely turn off experience loss upon death. You can use it at any moment, for instance if you realize you cannot defeat a tough boss. However, difficulty-related achievements will become unavailable in that case.
There is also a great art style, responsive movement, and well-crafted level design featuring various shortcuts and branching paths.
The game's weak spot lies in the speed and responsiveness of animations: the character and enemies feel “stiff” and “wooden”, making combat lack fluidity. Enemy variety is also modest, so closer to the end, opponents start to feel repetitive.
Valor Mortis
A fresh project from One More Level studio sends us to an alternate 19th-century Europe. The player takes control of William—a soldier of Napoleon's army who died on the battlefield but was resurrected thanks to a mysterious substance and is now forced to fight plague-stricken former comrades.
Combat is built on familiar hardcore principles, but the first-person perspective makes the gameplay feel unique, as you need to watch enemy animations and timings from a previously unseen perspective.
Added to this are “shooter” elements and a touch of BioShock: the player has access to a pistol, a musket, and several types of magic. Thus, you can pick off a tough enemy from afar or set a horde of attacking monsters ablaze with a stream of fire, severely slowing them down.
The modifier system also helps, allowing items to be slotted into special upgrade nodes. They affect playstyle: for instance, one lets you parry bullets and gain ammo in return, another makes weak-point hits explosive, while a third grants healing from melee attacks but disables medkits. While all of this does not lower the difficulty directly, it provides build flexibility and allows fine-tuning for various situations, skillfully navigating through them.
Phantom Blade Zero
High-speed action from S-GAME Studio is often compared to Sekiro due to parries and spectacular combat, but here you don't lose resources on death, and enemies do not respawn. Meanwhile, a vast arsenal of weapons (around 30 types) and the ability to reset and transfer upgrades make playthroughs open and free for experimentation.
In addition, the game features a poise meter equivalent that replaced stamina: it isn't consumed by regular attacks or dodges, but is spent when delivering heavy blows. When an enemy's meter is depleted, you can perform an execution, which also works the other way around—when the protagonist's meter runs dry, he becomes vulnerable to attack.
Four difficulty levels await us here: easy, normal, hard, and extremely hard, and after being defeated in a boss fight's second phase, you won't have to replay the first phase from scratch. It feels as though the game strips away all the “suffocating grind” inherent to the genre without ceasing to be demanding of the player's skills, still allowing you to level up not just your character, but yourself as well.