Back in 1993, a little-known game called Doom came out. It wasn’t the first game to offer shooting in first-person, but it did popularise the genre. The games that followed became known as Doom-clones (often because they used the same engine), and it wasn’t until the likes of GoldenEye, Half-Life, Halo, and more developed the genre further in the late 90s that the more neutral term first-person shooter was more widely used.
I feel we’re facing a similar situation with Soulslikes. After the huge success FromSoftware found with its Dark Souls games, the term has been used for games imitating the studio’s design. Yet fatigue is now setting in and the term is becoming redundant.
Take gamescom Opening Night Live. A load of (assumed) Soulslikes were announced, from a sequel to Lords of the Fallen, to the Napoleonic Soulslike Valor Mortis. But for most of these games, are they really Soulslikes? Or are they just third-person action-RPGs that have been conflated with FromSoftware’s works as a lazy shorthand to garner attention?
Because what, really, is a Soulslike? Is it a third-person combat game with a stamina gauge? Is it a game where you lose your currency upon death? Is it a game with looping level design? Hidden lore? Or an action game that’s just really hard?
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I’d argue a game needs to have the above to truly be considered a Soulslike. Yet the problem here is the term constantly invites comparison back to FromSoftware’s very specific work. And it’s hard to compete with the originators of the genre. Heck, even FromSoftware itself has challenged the design philosophy of Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki with subsequent entries, from Bloodborne to Sekiro to Nightreign.