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Now that half a year has passed since Elden Ring: Nightreign‘s release, I think I can speak with complete certainty about how disappointing FromSoftware’s latest release was.
As a roguelite and as a Soulsborne installment, the title fails to deliver the same transcendent experience as its spiritual predecessors, ultimately settling for a decent multiplayer experience that doesn’t seem to live up to the company’s previous work.
While I applaud the effort and the intention of venturing into a completely unfamiliar genre, the leaning towards a partially service-based model has been a dealbreaker for me, and it seems for many other players who haven’t been captivated by the title either, as evidenced by its 77 Metacritic score.
To be honest, I’d say all my reservations about the game are rather general, which is precisely why I’ve been able to compile this list of ten Soulslikes reviewed better than Elden Ring: Nightreign.
10 Another Crab’s Treasure
Aggregate Score: 78
Although I approached Another Crab’s Treasure with no greater ambition than to have some lighthearted fun, I ended up discovering a Soulslike far more accomplished than I expected.
This isn’t just due to its incredible thematic personality, offering a heartfelt critique of environmental pollution through humor and a highly coherent and charismatic ludonarrative adaptation, but also to its refined gameplay.
The shell system that grants new abilities, the parry that works when released rather than triggered, the level design that incorporates comfortable platforming, the incredibly challenging and addictive bosses… Its content may be limited in scope, but its quality is astonishing.
Another Crab’s Treasure is among the biggest surprises I’ve had in the last couple of years, so I wholeheartedly recommend it if you’re looking for a FromSoftware-style experience that, nevertheless, feels truly different.
9 Lies of P
Aggregate Score: 80
An average score of 80 for Lies of P seems criminal and unheard of, as it’s the best Soulslike I’ve ever had the chance to play, but it’s enough to earn a place on this coveted list.
NEOWIZ’s game has best channeled the lessons learned from the Soulsborne series, creating a captivating universe with gripping lore, unforgettable characters, and a truly astonishing array of bosses whose difficulty will leave even the most seasoned player challenged.
Between its wonderful adaptation of Pinocchio’s fable and its glorious interpretation of Bloodborne‘s design, traveling to Krat is stepping into an immersive city whose level of gameplay refinement seemed only within reach of the world’s most renowned developers.
However, Lies of P arrived to prove the AA industry doesn’t always have to envy the big blockbusters, gifting us with a superb campaign from beginning to end that can rival several FromSoftware games without much difficulty.
8 Black Myth: Wukong
Aggregate Score: 81
Nothing excites me more than a video game that embraces its cultural and historical roots, aiming to leverage the medium’s ability to communicate and connect, which is why I love Black Myth: Wukong.
While it leans less towards the Soulslike style and more towards the traditional ARPG tropes, the influence of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s work is undeniable, with a strong emphasis on challenging bosses, a notable variety of builds, fragmented lore, and side quests that I swear can only be discovered by someone capable of delving into the game’s code.
It’s no coincidence Black Myth: Wukong is among the few games in the genre to be nominated for Game of the Year, a feat achieved thanks to one of the best mythological settings and adaptations ever conceived, along with deep gameplay that continues to captivate and impress even 50 hours after you’ve battled everyone.
The idea of striking a flying white dragon with a stick from 10 meters away while thunder rumbles in the background amidst a tundra is among the most mythical and spectacular scenes I have ever witnessed, and this marvel from China makes that feeling its routine.
7 Nine Sols
Aggregate Score: 84
If you thought combining two practically perfect titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Hollow Knight was impossible, Nine Sols surprised everyone—especially me—with a polished offering that’s difficult to put down once you pick it up.
Soulslikes and Metroidvanias are two gameplay styles that complement each other beautifully, leveraging their shared emphasis on level design, difficulty, bosses, and progression to create an adventure that builds steadily, even though it starts strong.
Once you master the parry, get used to the movement mechanics, and begin executing combat with the grace of a samurai using their hands instead of a katana, you enter a refined and enjoyable flow state like few others in the video game industry, both within and outside the indie scene.
While I still have nightmares about its secret final boss, it’s compensated by the satisfaction each fight brings, because there’s nothing more sensorially exhilarating than performing eight consecutive parries before inflicting the greatest amount of damage ever seen by humanity, I assure you.
6 Blasphemous 2
Aggregate Score: 84
Although I highly recommend playing Blasphemous, I can’t help but skip that recommendation and jump straight to Blasphemous 2, one of the best indie sequels I’ve ever played.
When it comes to improving upon everything that propelled its predecessor to glory, I don’t doubt The Game Kitchen did its homework with a degree of overall excellence, as there’s nothing that doesn’t find a refined version in this installment.
The bosses’ variety and depth, the platforming, the art direction, the progression, the secrets, the soundtrack… As a Metroidvania with Souls influence, Blasphemous 2 pushes its boundaries to make you feel like you’re in heaven for every hour you dedicate to it.
I would have missed a slightly higher difficulty level, since only the final boss lives up to the first game’s challenges, but it’s a minor detail and not necessarily a negative one, so I’ll avoid considering it when discussing this marvel as a masterpiece of the indie scene.
5 Salt and Sanctuary
Aggregate Score: 84
Before I was into indies or Souls games not developed by FromSoftware, Salt and Sanctuary was the title that opened my mind to both worlds, so I have a lot to thank it for.
A decade has passed since its release, and I still believe it’s the purest 2D adaptation of the Soulsborne philosophy, masterfully capturing every feeling despite the change in perspective to make you feel anxiety, uncertainty, and tension with a touch of freshness.
Fighting your first boss, joining your first covenant, finding your first secret area, discovering your first movement ability… Salt and Sanctuary knows how to make everything memorable, constantly evolving in complexity to always give you reasons to return to its world.
A lot has changed over the last couple of years, and there have been better Metroidvanias, better Soulslikes, better indies, and better two-dimensional games, though I dare say few, if any, have reached the relevance and impact Ska Studios’ title achieved.
4 Death’s Door
Aggregate Score: 85
The beauty of Soulslike games lies in the fact that each title within the genre can draw upon a different approach from FromSoftware: progression, level design, an emphasis on difficulty, an ambiguous story, or, as in the case of Death’s Door, all of the above.
However, unlike the somber and austere tones of most Soulslike titles, Death’s Door embraces the most colorful and vibrant traditional fantasy imaginable, creating a living world whose inhabitants, while intent on destroying you, constitute a beautiful ecosystem to inhabit, observe, and experience.
You have your fair share of challenging bosses, cryptic NPCs, interconnected levels, blurred objectives, and other elements you might expect, but all filtered through a lens reminiscent of classic The Legend of Zelda games, where exploring, understanding, and utilizing the environment is just as important as knowing when to dodge and attack.
And I think there’s no better way to describe Death’s Door than as a modern classic that, despite applying current trends, approaches them with old-fashioned intentions, focused on discovery and adventure rather than results, and that’s what makes it such a special work for me.
3 Tunic
Aggregate Score: 85
I know the Soulsborne doctrine is intimately linked to getting lost while familiarizing yourself with the hostile spaces that surround you, but this is a premise Tunic takes much further.
I just have a few memories of feeling so disoriented in a video game and yet simultaneously feeling delighted, because the joy of wandering through this world, piecing together its workings and mechanics with no help other than your reasoning, is masterful and demanding.
The combat and bosses are also excellent, I won’t lie, but I think none of us who praise Tunic‘s proposal do so because the mechanics are merely adequate. Instead, the reason for valuing it so highly is what it contextualizes in those fights: exploring the maps, understanding how they connect, knowing which items do what, discovering how to take advantage of the environments, and so on.
Of all the games on this list, I’d venture to say Tunic is both among the best and hardest to recommend, because it’s anything but accessible. The rest are more or less straightforward and focus more on their pattern-based gameplay, whereas this one in particular centers on one of the least influential aspects of Soulsborne games: knowledge.
2 Nioh
Aggregate Score: 88
I’d be lying if I said I was as big a fan of Nioh as I am of the other titles on this list because, honestly, I value its presentation much more than its execution. Regardless, I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t understand why it has such a high average score.
In an era when Soulslikes weren’t yet taken seriously, standing out within the genre seemed impossible, but Team Ninja managed it by extrapolating their hack-and-slash experience to a new gameplay structure that ended up working far better than I could have imagined.
Being set in feudal Japan and incorporating Yokai mythology gives this AA a tremendous advantage, yet the true cohesion of its gameplay lies in its fierce combat, where weapon and stamina management are even more critical than in Dark Souls.
For that reason, I’d say it didn’t resonate so unanimously with the community, as it adds a pseudo-strategic component that forces you to think and act beyond simply identifying a set of moves, but this is precisely the key that differentiates it and elevates it above other games of its kind from the last 10 years.
Perhaps one day I’ll revisit it to try to experience what I didn’t feel during my first playthrough, especially since I’m a longtime fan of the developer. However, even if my return doesn’t bear fruit, I’ll never deny its quality or how it helped to establish a genre that was dormant at the time.
1 Hollow Knight: Silksong
Aggregate Score: 91
As part of the highest-rated games of 2025 and the only one on the list to be considered a must-play according to Metacritic, there was no other way to finish this list than with Hollow Knight: Silksong, which is also my personal Game of the Year.
Despite its predecessor having set an incredibly high bar I thought was insurmountable all these years, Team Cherry managed to surpass itself in every single aspect, leaving no stone unturned and sacrificing not even the smallest detail to achieve such greatness.
Every single year of waiting was worth it to see one of the most profound, polished, and intelligent indie games in the short history of the genre materialize, discarding the melancholy of Hallownest to make way for the tragic grandeur of Pharloom in an unprecedented journey.
It’s curious how I haven’t felt this way playing a game since Elden Ring, the ultimate expression of the Soulsborne formula, but I think it makes sense in retrospect, given Hollow Knight follows in Dark Souls‘ footsteps, and the natural paths of both franchises have led them to the same, perfected destination.
While it’s not the purest Soulslike on the list, it’s the one that most skillfully takes Miyazaki’s sacred word into account. Without his interconnected level design and exploration, without his spectacular bosses meticulously linked to trial and error, without his lore distributed throughout everything except cutscenes, and without his audiovisual presentation that tells more than the dialogue itself, Silksong wouldn’t be Silksong.
