Soulslikes, Ranked by Difficulty and Delight

FromSoftware's Sengoku game landed on 22 March 2019 and took Game of the Year at The Game Awards; the Steam listing is the GOTY Edition, which adds a Gauntlet of Strength boss rush. No stamina bar, no corpse run, and it still tops the list. Deflecting until a boss's posture bar breaks is the only real answer, so every duel becomes a rhythm test. Hardest thing here, happiest once it clicks.

Sony published it for PlayStation 4 in March 2015 and never brought it to PC, so the link goes to Wikipedia: a console exclusive, not on Steam, and that still stings. Rally is why it ranks second. Take a hit, hit back inside the window, and the health comes home. Aggression becomes the defence, which turns fear into greed and terror into appetite.

Placing the consensus winner third comes down to one thing: the catacombs recycle bosses until the difficulty axis stops paying out. FromSoftware and Bandai Namco shipped it on 25 February 2022 with founding mythology credited to George R. R. Martin. Delight stays enormous, though, because bouncing off Margit and riding away to come back meaner is a mercy the older games never offered.

Bandai Namco put the PC port on Steam in August 2012, bundled with the Artorias of the Abyss content, and this stays the 2011 original's listing, though it now shows no price and no purchase options, and its online multiplayer was switched off permanently after a January 2022 security exploit. Lordran folding back on itself is the payoff: the elevator down from Undead Parish opening onto Firelink Shrine reframes hours of nervous walking.

Neowiz released and published it on 18 September 2023, and it is the rare non-FromSoftware attempt that got the parry window right. Perfect guards chip a boss's weapon rather than your patience, and the Legion Arm bolted to your left side turns a flamethrower or a grapple into a combo ender. Krat looks gorgeous. The bosses cheat in exactly the way I enjoy.

Red Candle Games put this out on 29 May 2024 and describes its own combat as Sekiro-inspired and deflection-focused, which is honest, because Yi's parry has almost no forgiveness in it. Throwing a Sol's whole attack string back and closing with the Taoist talisman is the cleanest two-dimensional version of that feeling anyone has managed. Punishing, and pretty enough that I kept dying cheerfully.

Where the whole thing started. FromSoftware and Sony Computer Entertainment released it for PlayStation 3 in Japan on 5 February 2009, and it has never reached PC, so the link is Wikipedia: PlayStation exclusive then, PlayStation exclusive now. World Tendency remains the strangest idea the series ever had, shifting enemy health and drops according to how you have been behaving. Clunkier than its children, weirder than all of them.

Team Cherry released it on 24 February 2017 and afterwards handed out four free content packs, Godmaster and Lifeblood and The Grimm Troupe and Hidden Dreams. Whether a metroidvania belongs here is a fair fight, and reclaiming your shade to get your Geo back settles it for me. Hallownest charges you for curiosity, then pays you in map. Brutal and warm at once.

Koei Tecmo's Complete Edition, dated 5 February 2021 on Steam, carries all three expansions: The Tengu's Disciple, Darkness in the Capital and The First Samurai. Combat is the densest in the genre, with stances switched mid-combo, Dark Realms that enemies throw over an arena, and Yokai Shift to cash in the meter your greed filled. Loot is a mess and the structure is missions rather than a world. A hundred hours went in anyway.

Aggro Crab's undersea soulslike arrived on 25 April 2024 and its best joke is structural, because Kril wears scavenged litter for a shell, so a soda can is your armour and armour breaks. Losing it mid-boss is real panic. Difficulty is a dial you can turn at any moment, though the default setting is Hard, and it can still humiliate you.

Team17 published it on 10 September 2019, and The Game Kitchen's pixel art is the most committed work on this list, since every execution animation with Mea Culpa is a small ugly painting you cannot look away from. The Penitent One takes damage like wet paper and some platforming spikes are plainly cheap. Finished it twice regardless, to see what Cvstodia would do next.

Guns instead of swords, which plenty of people will say disqualifies it, though the death loop and the boss design keep the same shape. Gunfire Games released it on 25 July 2023; the Archetype system slots two classes together, and dynamically generated dungeons mean your campaign is not your friend's campaign. Difficulty scales cruelly in co-op. Delight arrives on the reroll.

Respawn Entertainment's entry landed on 15 November 2019, published by Electronic Arts, and it is the soft landing here: meditation points restore health and respawn every enemy, precisely the bonfire bargain, at gentler stakes. BD-1, the droid clipped to your back, scans rooms, opens doors and passes over stims, and that chirp carries most of the charm. Easiest on the list, and the one I hand to people who keep bouncing off.