Soulslikes That Feel Like Elden Ring

Summary

• Elden Ring solidified a new era with its interconnected, sprawling world and rewarding combat.
• Soulslike games mimic FromSoftware games’ freedom of exploration and challenging combat.
• Games like Black Myth: Wukong and AI Limit offer challenging combat akin to Elden Ring.

FromSoftware’s Elden Ring solidified a new era of action RPGs and Soulslikes with its sprawling world, cryptic lore, and punishing but rewarding combat. While many Soulslike games and Elden Ring borrow elements from Dark Souls, there are only so many that achieve the same feeling of exploration and danger.

The great thing about Elden Ring is how many challenges it offers, with many ways to approach them in the form of equipment and skills. The following Soulslike games emulate the same feeling of freedom when it comes to facing challenging worlds.

1

Another Crab’s Treasure

Underwater Combat With A Satirical Edge

Another Crab’s Treasure is a cartoonish, brightly colored game with deceptively deep mechanics, following Kril the hermit crab who was stripped of his shell and forced to use trash as weapons. Beneath the ocean’s colorful surface lies a challenging Soulslike focused on dodge and parry timing, pattern recognition, and strategic gear choices. Like Elden Ring, each enemy requires focus, especially the bosses.

The world of Another Crab’s Treasure invites exploration through environmental storytelling and backtracking to find Microplastics to upgrade Kril. This game mimics FromSoftware designs in the best ways through its freedom of exploration, hidden items to discover, and challenging combat.

2

Enotria: The Last Song

A Souslike Adventure Based On Italian Folklore

Enotria: The Last Song is aesthetically similar to Elden Ring, aside from the Italian folklore theme, complete with eldritch horrors and a ruinous world. This game plays like many Soulslike games, with combat emphasizing timing to parry, dodge, and punish attacks.

Players take on the role of the “Maskless One,” a warrior who wields different masks that provide varying combat styles and equipment loadouts. This system is unique because players can switch between masks on the fly, making each encounter a strategic dance between styles.

3

Remnant 2

Gunplay With Strategic Boss Combat

Remnant 2 is heavily inspired by Soulslike games, but it mechanically plays closer to a third-person shooter game. Players in this game can wield up to two guns alongside their melee weapon, with a set class archetype that has unique skills to contribute to combat. The world of Remnant 2 feels as big and scary as Elden Ring, with bosses that require a great balance of dodging and dealing damage.

This game sends players into a twisted sci-fi eldritch horror universe, traveling across different worlds to find segments of “the Index.” The biggest difference to contend with here is how procedural generation affects everything from enemy types and boss characters down to the aesthetic of a region and storyline quests.

4

AI Limit

Cyberpunk Action With Brutal Boss Battles

AI Limit feels like Elden Ring with its brutal melee combat and Soulslike exploration, only this one is set in an anime-inspired apocalyptic sci-fi world. With a similarly moody and twisted world, AI Limit stands out as a challenging and alternative version of Soulslike games.

The world of AI Limit has powerful enemies that require quick thinking and understanding of combinations of weapons and weapon skills. And similar to Bloodborne, combat encourages constantly attacking enemies, here with a Sync Rate meter, where weapons increase in effectiveness the higher the meter is.

5

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

Fast Combat Set In Ancient China

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty may be more linear than a game like Nioh, but it feels like Elden Ring in terms of its combat mechanics and how challenging every enemy encounter is. This game is an action RPG rooted in Chinese history and close-quarters combat, featuring magical creatures and epic boss fights.

After players create their avatar and choose one of the five classes, they will find themselves at odds against the world. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s challenging combat revolves around deflecting attacks to counter opponents, and building a spirit gauge that allows players to unleash powerful spirit attacks.

6

Lords Of The Fallen

An Alternate Dark Souls

Lords of the Fallen feels like an alternative to the Dark Souls series, and like Elden Ring, features a dark fantasy world with creepy monsters and a narrative that ends in multiple different ways. Players can fight in this world as one of nine classes and explore Axiom and its twisted monsters.

This game presents itself more like a Dark Souls game rather than a Soulslike, featuring a similar mechanic of retrieving lost experience points when they die and the intense fights in between runs. Lords of the Fallen feels like it could be an extension to Elden Ring, swarming with eldritch horrors on a mangled path.

7

Thymesia

A Gothic World Of Plague-Based Powers

Thymesia is a dark, eerie world with plague-ridden environments and fragments of lore, like a mix between Bloodborne and Elden Ring. This game focuses on aggressive, quick-paced combat driven by precise parries centered around a dual-weapon system. Parrying slightly drains the health of enemies, which encourages players to get close and take risks.

The bosses in Thymesia are relentless, ranging from human-sized to massive beast encounters. Players can mix their attacks with plague-based magic to get an edge on their opponents. Overall, this game is a tight addition to Soulslike games and an impressive debut from the devs at OverBorder Studio.

8

The First Berserker: Khazan

Precision Parrying & Brutal Combat

The First Berserker: Khazan is a heavy-hitting, combat-driven game featuring parry mechanics and brutal enemy design. Every encounter, from minor to major, is ruthless, and for a game centered around managing stamina to dodge, block, and attack, Khazan makes for a strategic challenge in approaching enemies. Enemies can recover their stamina, so like a berserk warrior, players must relentlessly attack.

Similar to Elden Ring, the world design is bleak, filled with interconnected zones full of ambushes and secrets, and a narrative with multiple endings. Although The First Berserker: Khazan is more linear and only features three weapon types to fight with. Players can find equipment upgrades and level up their skills, and engage in an epic plot against necromancy and chaos magic.

9

Black Myth: Wukong

Legendary Martial Arts Combat With Mythic Beasts

Black Myth: Wukong is a unique action RPG with Soulslike elements, steeped in Chinese folklore and played through high-speed martial arts action and mythological worldbuilding on a cinematic scale. The scale and difficulty of this game resemble Elden Ring, and match its energy with sprawling landscapes, nonlinear progression, and detailed characters with intense combat.

Like other Soulslikes, Black Myth: Wukong excels at quick combo-based combat with engaging battles centered around pattern recognition and effectively using skills combined in a skill tree. There are many bosses in this world, and many of them are so large in scale that it feels like an insurmountable challenge, yet achieving victory is so satisfying.

10

Lies Of P

Twisted Fairy Tale With Relentless Fights

Lies of P is one of the best additions to the Soulslike genre, feeling like Elden Ring in terms of atmosphere, scale, and challenging combat. In a world loosely based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio, Lies of P follows a puppet traversing the hostile city of Krat. The world design unfolds through interconnected zones with a haunting gothic atmosphere reminiscent of Bloodborne and Elden Ring.

Combat tests players’ ability in timing, resource management, and weapon mastery through weapon crafting that allows for mixing and matching customizations. The multiphase boss fights are relentless and rewarding for those who learn enemy patterns and succeed. With tight combat and layered exploration, Lies of P stands as one of the most refined Soulslike experiences in recent years and is a must-play for anyone who loved Elden Ring.