10. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

While this is predominantly a list of brutally difficult, beautifully grotesque games that feel connected to Dark Souls mechanically, tonally, and aesthetically, not every soulslike has to tread that path. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor borrows many of FromSoft’s signature mechanics but sends them on a journey to a galaxy far, far away, where the challenge curve is a little gentler, the punishment for failure a touch less devastating, and the stats far more decipherable. A huge improvement on the “Star Souls” blueprint that was Jedi: Fallen Order, Survivor’s fantastic lightsaber combat makes full use of dodge and parry mechanics in a system that takes the best of Sekiro and makes it (literally) hum. Meanwhile, multiple lightsaber stances provide distinct battle styles and help deliver the weapon variety we get in more traditional Souls games. And while combat is vital to the Souls experience, so is exploration, which is deeply enjoyable here thanks to mounts, shortcuts, and fast-travel points that make traipsing the numerous planets for loot and lore more convenient and less punishing after death.

9. Lords of the Fallen (2023)

The original Lords of the Fallen, released in 2014, has gone down in history as a textbook example of what not to do when developing a Soulslike. Among the first developers to try and piggyback off FromSoft’s rising star, CI Games and Deck13 delivered a body without a soul, doubling down on slow movement speed at a time when FromSoft was about to speed things up. The 2023 sequel-slash-reboot rises from the dead to try again, this time to far greater success – in no small part thanks to a dual-realm mechanic that takes corpse-running to the next level. Lords of the Fallen is an example of a series getting a second chance at life and making the absolute most of it, and this resurrection was just the beginning: since launch it has benefitted from a number of massive upgrades, including a full co-operative mode, and a new sequel is on the way.

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8. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

A number of ambitious Chinese developers have experimented with the Souls style in recent years, and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers follows FromSoft’s example more closely than its rivals. Set in China’s ancient Shu kingdom, your character, the titular Wuchang, is afflicted by a mysterious illness that – if left untreated – will cause her to lose her sanity and turn into a feathered monstrosity. Madness is a core mechanic, but unlike Hollowing in the original Dark Souls, it’s more than cosmetic: you deal and take more damage as the meter fills, and an “Inner Demon” arrives in the world to hunt you down. The only salve is to find and kill specific feathered enemies, which will reset your sanity.

7. The Surge

There’s some debate about which of Deck13 Interactive’s The Surge games is the better one – the 2017 original or its 2019 sequel. These sci-fi spins on the Souls formula both benefit from a Monster-Hunter-esque crafting system, using his dismembered pieces of zombified cyborgs to craft new weapons and armor. But while the sequel scores points for expanding enemy and weapon variety and deepening its combat system, the original is widely considered to have a more gripping, tightly-told story and effective atmosphere. As our review explained, The Surge 2’s updates and improvements don’t quite make up for the loss of charm and character.

6. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

Team Ninja is a major name in the Soulslike space, and its excellent Nioh series is represented in this list’s higher ranks. But in 2023 the studio swapped Sengoku-period Japan for Han dynasty China. A change of location is just the start of Wo Long’s different flavor, though. This time, inspiration is drawn from Sekiro as opposed to Dark Souls, featuring a combat system complete with a parries, a depletable spirit meter, and clearly telegraphed unblockable attacks. Praised for simplifying the at-times dizzying mechanical complexity of the Nioh games – as well as a new morale system that links enemy resistance to player exploration and battle prowess – Wo Long proves a worthy addition to Team Ninja’s catalog.

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5. Black Myth: Wukong

Game Science’s adaptation of Journey to the West caused a stir with its impressive first trailer in 2020 and had everyone anxiously waiting through its subsequent four-year development journey. Black Myth: Wukong manages to combine the tooth-and-nail gameplay-feel of a Souls game with the cinematic pomp of God of War. The somewhat awkward controls admittedly can’t always keep up with the impeccable visuals, and so much of Wukong feels like the first-time developers are still trying to find their footing. Still, several of the bosses in its gigantic roster (there are 107 in total, mandatory and optional combined) stand toe to toe with FromSoft’s best, with Great Sage’s Broken Shell scratching an itch not felt since facing Gehrman, Gale, and Isshin.

4. The First Berserker: Khazan

Neople’s epic revenge tale, set in the same universe as its long-running Dungeon & Fighter series, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But those who love The First Berserker: Khazan really love it. Its cell-shaded art style and explosive temper call back to Asura’s Wrath of all things, while its chapter-based boss rush (Soulsrush?) format edges closer to Wukong. Infuriating difficulty, the kind that has you bounce between resignation and euphoria, is the name of the game here, as you master its fast-paced combat that takes cues from Sekiro’s parry-based sword fighting and adds a little extra depth. There’s nothing here that truly revolutionizes the genre, but there are some very welcome permutations, like how dying to a boss will actually net you some currency based on how far into the fight you got, rather than empty your collection entirely.

3. Remnant 2

2023 has gone down in history as a phenomenal year for Soulslikes, giving us Wo Long, Lords of the Fallen, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and the next game to join our list: Remnant 2. Gunfire Games’ Remnant: From the Ashes, released in 2019, featured one of the more interesting applications of FromSoft-derived mechanics, blending them with looter shooter ideas to create what was lovingly referred to as “Dark Souls with guns.” It had many things going for it, including some of the medium’s best procedurally generated levels, and the sequel does what any good sequel does: giving more of what fans liked while fixing what they didn’t. A dozen new “archetype” classes, and the ability to equip two different ones at a time, make for welcome additions. And the bosses, previously a low-point, are now a highlight.

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2. Nioh 2

The best soulslikes find a way to use the Souls series as a starting point and then leap off from there and do their own thing. None do this better than the Nioh series, one of the first soulslikes to give FromSoft a real run for its money. It still has all of the essential qualities of a soulslike, but developer Team Ninja manages to tweak each of those qualities in ways that make the Nioh games feel familiar, but also completely distinct.

2017’s Nioh expanded the genre in ways now taken for granted, taking cues from combo-heavy hack-and-slashers. It’s still got that careful and deliberate pace thanks to a stamina bar that governs your every action, but on top of that is a ki pulse mechanic that allows you to regain that stamina with well timed button presses after each attack, which facilitates a much faster pace to the action. And while it still features the disgusting monsters and perilous situations demanded of the genre, it possesses a more playful tone befitting its fish-out-of-water protagonist, William Adams: a real-life English sailor turned yokai-hunting samurai. It’s Nioh 2, though, in which you play a half-yokai, which we recommend here: Team Ninja tweaked what little wasn’t working while expanding on what did, adding weapons, spells, abilities, and more to create an incredibly deep, incredibly challenging soulslike.

Honorable Mention: Hollow Knight

While undeniably inspired by Dark Souls in many ways, Hollow Knight doesn’t really play like other games on this list in practice. It shares a similar storytelling style of letting you piece together the history of its world and your role within it through subtle dialogue and rich lore, as well as that familiar death mechanic of having to reach the place you died to retrieve your money – but its combat, progression, and movement systems are extremely different from the Souls setup. So while the line separating Soulslikes from Metroidvanias shows itself to be narrow here, Hollow Knight’s gameplay doesn’t actually use FromSoft’s signature style to the same extent as others on this list. That’s not to say Hollow Knight isn’t part of the Soulslike conversation, though. Before we settled on the strict final criteria, it was in the running for the top spot of this very list. Team Cherry’s instant classic showed that this design approach can be cartoony, even cute, without betraying its core identity. Its features expertly designed bosses and an ambiance few games can match – no matter their budget or number of dimensions. Atmosphere also happens to be why we’d recommend Hollow Knight slightly above its recently released successor, Silksong, as the sequel’s world of Pharloom – while a joy to explore – doesn’t quite reach the heights (or rather: dark, cobwebbed depths) of Hallownest.