Souls-likes (& dislikes) - PlayStation 5 (PS5) Forum

psmr · 2023-04-06T09:56:58+00:00

Just thought it could be a decent idea to have a thread dedicated to the sub-genre as a whole as opposed to the individual games that sit (or don’t depending on your point-of-view) within it. A long story short, I’m a massive fan of these games and am yet to play one that I didn’t enjoy. So much so that I tend to ration myself by only playing two souls-likes per year, firstly to ensure that I always go in fresh each time for maximum enjoyment and secondly so I don’t just burn through them all and have none left in the backlog 😅. So the main reason for me starting the thread results from my recent time on The Surge 2 and the difficulty I’m having in ranking it amongst the other souls-likes I’ve played. It’s great, I’m thoroughly enjoying it… and there are things it does which genuinely add to the formula but I’d still really struggle to place it above any of the sub-genre’s stalwarts. It does have its issues, those being it looks poor and seems to be pretty short… but apart from that it has well and truly scratched the itch. Special mention must go to the directional-parry system and the stellar level-design… also the combat in general has been sped up considerably since the original while maintaining the cool (and very useful) dismemberment function. I think I’m basically in the camp of… From Soft’s games being out in front but that The Surge 2 offers the closest approximation of their games, while arguably improving on the combat. The Nioh games are also great (arguably better than The Surge 2 ) but their spin on the genre is even more combat-focused, while far less emphasis is placed on the exploration of labyrinthine level-design. The other games that I’ve played that would be considered souls-likes would probably come in a fair bit under this Nioh / The Surge tier, including Code Vein , Immortal Unchained , Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order , Lords of the Fallen etc. and while I enjoyed them all on their own merits, they ended up falling a little short. I’ve still got a few souls-likes tucked away for a rainy day ( Steelrising , Hellpoint , Chronos before the Ashes , Mortal Shell , Thymesia , Shattered: Tale of a Forgotten King , Decay of Logos , Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption , Dolmen … Stranger of Paradise ?) and there are some games still to be released that look awesome too ( Lies of P , Black Myth Wukong etc.) but what will it take for a game to be generally considered a best in class… ie better than one made by From Soft game?

Topic: Souls-likes (& dislikes)

Posts 181 to 183 of 183

181
DemonStar89
Mon 13th Apr 2026

@Tjuz what happened to Bluepoint?

If I'm not mistaken, they did the fabulous Ico/Shadow of the Colossus remasters and I thought they were in for a great future. I was hoping they'd be the ones doing some more remasters of older titles along the same lines.

I'm under a rock with a lot of development press though.

[Edited Mon 13th Apr 2026 by DemonStar89]

'It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life." - Captain Picard

Profile pic drawn by me in Krita - one of my DnD characters

182
Tjuz
Wed 15th Apr 2026

@DemonStar89 Yeah, as Yousef mentioned, they were shut down by Sony. No more games coming from them. From what I've followed and seen in terms of press, it just seemed like they weren't really able to get a project off the ground since the Demon Souls remake. Pitches were rejected, projects were canceled, etc. Just a lot of lost time, energy and budget with no reward in sight. I believe it was a combination of Bluepoint itself being a bit mismanaged and Sony being a bit of a pain in the butt. It didn't sound like there was really any one issue or leadership at fault, so it's a shame that it has turned out this way. I've never played any of their games admittedly, but they always seemed exceptionally well-crafted from the sidelines. Truly a loss for the industry!

Tjuz

183
CaptD
Thu 21st May 2026

An interesting video about localising Demon’s Souls.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbKALhzHVc&ra=m
Umbasa

CaptD

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