Next week sees the release of the very cool-looking Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, an action game where you play as a badass pirate warrior with amnesia. While figuring out what’s up with your memories (hell yeah), you spend your time fighting giant monsters (hell yeah!) inflicted by a mysterious feathery illness (hell yeah!!!), and have to– Ah, dammit, it’s another Soulslike? Seriously?
To be clear, I haven’t played Wuchang Fallen Feathers yet, but the genre it’s ostensibly part of is emblematic of a gaming trend that’s gone on for far too long: There are too many Soulslikes! Largely inspired by FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, these action-adventure games tend to put a heavy focus on blocking, parrying, and dodging attacks, and love to throw a challenging boss fight in your path. Often, they are moody in tone. More often, they make me moody.
Image: Spiders / Nacon
The genre has been around in some capacity for about a decade, but I first noticed it reached a saturation point in 2022, following the release of SteelRising. Developed by Spiders, the French studio known for Greedfall, SteelRising casts you as an automaton in an alternate history timeline of Revolution-era France where you have to carve through an army of 18th-century robots protecting King Louis XVI. That’s, like, a five-exclamation point “hell yeah,” minimum. Then I played it, and despite the fascinating setup, found a game much like many I’d played before. Parry this. Dodge that. Get ass kicked by boss a few times.
The following year, Lies of P caught my attention. A Pinocchio game! With steampunk vibes! Also: automatons! Then I played Lies of P, and found it much like SteelRising: Parry this. Dodge that. Get ass kicked by boss a few times. Also that year, Team Ninja’s action game Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty let me down in a similar way. (I’ll never forgive you, Zhang Liang.)
Even games that aren’t technically Soulslikes are still absorbing the genre’s DNA. This started to become clear in 2024 with the release of Stellar Blade, an anime-as-hell action game that looked like what you’d get if Nier: Automata was developed with an actual color palette. The gameplay? Parry this. Dodge that. By the time Black Myth: Wukong — a boss rush with heavy Souls vibes that nabbed multiple Game Award nominations — rolled around later that year, my genre fatigue was so overwhelming that I didn’t even bother playing it.
(You could even make the case that the Soulslike plague has infected innocent genres as well, like turn-based RPGs. For instance, did Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 really benefit from centering its battles around a parrying mechanic with windows so tight that no one over 30 possesses the reflexes to react to them? Or would it have been a more confident game if it stuck to a traditional turn-based system?)
Image: Neowiz
I’ll admit that part of my aversion to the genre is a skill issue. There’s of course a time and a place for challenging games. But after a decade, beating my head against a boss three, five, ten times in a row before cracking its pattern has lost its luster. So many settings in Soulslike are genuinely captivating, distinct and well-realized in a manner that’s just begging to be explored. (See: French Revolution automatons. See also: Pinocchio automatons.) Sometimes, I just want to learn more about these worlds without having to pass a skill check. Can’t a guy get a walk in the park every now and then? As a treat?
Look, I’m not saying we should live in a world devoid of Soulslikes. (Repsawn’s Star Wars Jedi games are among my favorite games of the past few years.) I’m just saying it’s been a lot. No matter how cool a particular game looks, or how intriguing its premise, or how unique its setting, I’m finding it more and more difficult with each passing year to get excited about games that are marketed as Soulslikes.
On premise alone, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers looks absolutely dope. I’ll likely check it out. I just wish I didn’t have to figure out the timing of yet another parry.
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