Beyond FromSoftware: The Ten Best Soulslikes of the Past Decade
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
A retrospective look at the ten best non-FromSoftware Soulslike games released over the past decade, celebrating how developers have innovated within the genre.
The Soulslike genre has evolved far beyond its origins, branching out into vibrant underwater metroidvanias, frantic third-person shooters, and dark historical fantasy epics. While FromSoftware established the blueprint with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, developers across the industry have spent the last ten years putting their own inventive spins on bone-crunching difficulty, bonfire checkpoints, and punishing death mechanics. Recent highlights like *Wuchang: Fallen Feathers* and *The First Berserker: Khazan* prove that studios are still finding fresh ways to test player reflexes while experimenting with movement, pacing, and visual style.
Looking across the past decade of non-FromSoftware releases, certain titles stand out for how they reinvented the formula. *Another Crab's Treasure* brilliantly combined punishing combat with charming underwater exploration, complete with a suite of modern accessibility settings that let players actually pause the game. Meanwhile, cooperative shooters like *Remnant 2* proved that the genre does not need to rely strictly on melee weapons to deliver tense, atmospheric survival, offering procedurally generated worlds that keep players constantly adapting to new threats.
At the top of the non-FromSoftware mountain sits *Lies of P*, an atmospheric retelling of Pinocchio set in the plague-ridden city of Krat. Thanks to its tight parry system, innovative weapon-crafting mechanics, and a morality system tied to deception, it captured the gothic atmosphere of the genre while carving out a distinct identity. Whether you prefer the wuxia-inspired deflection of *Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty* or the lightsaber combat of *Star Wars Jedi: Survivor*, the past ten years have proven that challenging action RPGs are thriving in the hands of diverse creative teams.
Tags: Soulslike, Action RPG, Gaming, FromSoftware
Original article: Polygon