Post Script
Breaking the Soulslike code
Just how like Souls should a Soulslike be? Judging by Lords Of The Fallen and Lies Of P, the answer is very (although technically Lies Of P hews closer to
Bloodborne). And they aren’t alone. Fourteen years on from Demon’s Souls, many games that might fancy themselves ‘Soulslike’ have stuck closely to From’s original rules and regulations. “Miyazaki is our daddy and grandaddy,” Cezar Virtosu joked in E381. And indeed, there seems to be a reverence for the founding father and his crew here that’s less evident in equivalent design styles such as Roguelikes and Metroidvanias, one that perhaps leaves developers reluctant to reinterpret the sacred texts.
While other subgenres have become more liquid concepts in the past decade, the Soulslike design tends to be a wholesale choice. There are exceptions – looter-shooter crossover Remnant and its recent sequel, for instance, and Team Ninja slowly leaning back towards its Ninja Gaiden roots with Nioh 2 and
Wo Long. But more often than not, Soulslike feels like a formula rather than a school of thought. How else to explain that Lies Of P and Lords Of The Fallen share near-identical approaches to levelling up, weapon scaling, stamina management, parrying and more? You could argue that the particular form of these elements is central to any Soulslike, but From’s output might disagree. Sekiro remains very much within the legacy of Souls in terms of structure, exploration and challenge, but does so without a stamina bar, stat numbers, weapon scaling, or a European fantasy setting. Elden Ring is more traditional, but includes a dedicated jump button that eliminates the artifice of knee-high boundaries in level design, something still leant on by Lies Of P.
It also provides maps, countering years of mentally storing connections and layouts.
From thus makes ostensibly the same kind of game without slavish adherence to its component parts, and in that respect some developers have stopped following the lead of grandaddy Miyazaki, like Christians caring for the Old Testament over the New. It’s notable, for instance, that in Lords Of The Fallen
stamina and equipment load become less important than in Souls games, so there’s a reduced need to prioritise levelling up your endurance stat. As such, though, this mechanism almost feels like a dead branch that could be lopped off altogether or reworked, if it weren’t so vital to the ritual.
More problematically, the old process of retrieving dropped currency after death feels like a short-sighted inclusion in a world so packed with enemies. Up to an hour can go by in which you kill dozens upon dozens of enemies and then, due to a wrong turn into a late-game area or some rash judgement, you can end up with zero vigor to show for the effort. In such moments, the system feels like a twisted perversion of the concept of experience points. You’ve had the experience; now where’s the point? What was once audacious design feels a lot more punitive when the game is balanced towards slower progress and more frequent death.
At the same time, one of the smartest touches in Lords Of The Fallen shows how diverging from traditional Souls systems can offer room for more flexible play. Different kinds of arrows, bolts and throwable items are treated like spells: once you collect one, that type is added to your repertoire permanently, and using those you have assigned merely depletes an ammo bar that refills at a rest spot. This adjustment cuts out item farming, but also turns throwing things into a genuine build choice, an alternative to magic use, especially when the available items include a holy javelin you can spear into the ground to create a healing ward. Similar to Lies Of P enabling players to create hybrid weapons, it leads us to imagine what heights might be reached if such heretical thinking was applied to every piece of the Soulslike ideal.