Just this year alone, we’ll be getting quite a few Soulslikes. Coming from both recognizable and new studios, the age-old formula continues kicking, perhaps more than it ever has. But, instead of getting excited, I’m as tired as I ever was of the same old regurgitated design.
The Soulslike fatigue
The Soulslike fatigue should become an official psychological term meant to describe the appearance of the “it’s all so tiresome” mentality in people who just can’t keep up with so many games in the genre. Just in 2025, we’ve received Elden Ring: Nightreign, a new major DLC for Lies of P, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and will see Phantom Blade: Zero probably soon. On top of this, countless indie games following the Soulslike design philosophy will have arrived by this point, with more to come by the end of the year and onwards.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Soulslike genre is probably one of my favorites, and if it wasn’t good, we’d not have all these studios gunning for it. It sells well, usually plays well, and is overall a fun experience.
But having so many titles come out, costing so much and taking up so much gaming space, is alienating players from the genre. Just like MOBAs were cropping up left and right around the time League of Legends came out, we’re seeing Soulslikes drop all around us like there’s no tomorrow. It is reminiscent of the battle royale craze, or even the “Vampire Survivors-like” trend, where every single development studio believed they had to have these modes or else their game would be “left out” of the market.
Seeing Soulslikes at just about every corner is tiring. What made it special is now merely a fact of life, and since most of these new titles do not feature much in the ways of uniqueness, it’s just generating a lot of fatigue for the core formula.
We need a new trend, and we need it fast
Trends shape gaming in this day and age, unfortunately. Whatever’s popular with the kids these days is what will be developed and created the most, with a few studios making exceptions and considering games as art rather than as products.
In a highly corporatized environment, one where studios and developers don’t even need to be corporate per se, trends open up the floodgates for whatever new genre or design philosophy is popular.
Friendslop games, as they are jokingly called, completely overtook the indie gaming market, with every other game being a striking copy of Lethal Company or adjacent to it. It’s just what happens whenever anything hits the front pages of social media.
What we need is for someone to come in with some evolutionary formula that is neither friendslop nor Soulslike, but something new and unique that others will follow for a while. There is no escaping trend-chasing; it’s a fact of life like anything else.
And, if it must be so, I just want to see something other than Dark Souls #18674 popping up at every State of Play, Xbox Showcase, Game Awards, and other events.
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