Soulslike and Soulslite
In the world of video games, every so often a game comes along and redefines its genre, usually spawning a litany of copycats trying to cash in on the trailblazing game’s success. There have been several in the past decade including Minecraft for sandbox games, Fortnite for Battle Royale games, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for RPGs (role-playing games). After these games appeared on the market, there were games released that tried to imitate their success. While the three games listed above inspired copycats, there’s one game in recent memory that spawned an entire copycat genre: Dark Souls.
Dark Souls is an action RPG set in a high-fantasy kingdom of the undead where the undying toil endlessly against the madness that creeps into their minds. You play a silent protagonist, one of the undead who recently awoke in the Undead Asylum. The game pairs a lack of formal direction, challenging combat and punishing deaths into a harsh but fair experience that many players fell in love with. While Dark Souls is known for its high barrier of entry (you will die many, many times), its combat is never unfair. The reward of the game comes from learning from your past deaths (i.e. mistakes) and overcoming a seemingly insurmountable foe or environment. This game was a hardcore challenge for gamers who had gotten tired of the gaming industry holding your hand, always chasing the more casual gamer to expand their audience. The game rewarded experimenting with different builds and tactics to overcome challenges.
It released in 2011 to commercial and critical success. There are multiple games in the Souls series, though none ever reached the levels of innovation and praise that the first one received upon release. It redefined action RPGs and still inspires copycats, known as “Soulslike” games, to this day. This label is unwelcome because of its simplification of a dark and complex game that anyone can recreate. PC Gamer wrote a great article about this, but I’m here to talk about another label that’s popped up as of late.
Enter “Soulslite” games. These are games that take the elements that made Dark Souls so great in the first place (namely the lack of hand-holding and rewarding combat) and took them out of their games in order to attract a more casual audience. These games are usually harder than your average game, but also a lot more forgiving in terms of deaths and learning from your mistakes. The developers of these games basically take a harder than average game and slap this label on it to piggyback off of the series’ success. It’s a good marketing strategy, but in poor taste, considering it betrays the very spirit of the Souls games. Still, these Soulslite games are popping up one after another in an effort to capitalize on the hardcore challenge that the original game provided.
With games like Fortnite, it’s easy to see why companies are targeting a more casual demographic. Fortnite is a massive commercial success while being released for free much like the mobile games that tons of people play on their phones every day. It is a huge market that has potential to make the companies a lot of money, and that’s the goal of any company. However, there is something to be said for companies that can take current trends and turn them on their heads without churning out a simple clone. For example, you don’t see Nintendo making a copycat Fortnite just because it’s all the rage. They did, however, make a game that takes the success of Fortnite in a unique and innovative direction. This is the way a company should handle trends in the industry without demoralizing the fanbase that loved the game in the first place.
Soulslite games are an affront to the demographic that Dark Souls was made for. Dark Souls was for hardcore gamers that wanted a challenge, and From Software (its developer) knew it. They still develop rewarding and difficult games including one releasing in March based on feudal Japan which is great for gamers in need of a challenge. The games called “Soulslite” belong in the gaming marketplace like any other game, but developers need to stop using the Souls name to sell copies when their games cut everything that made Dark Souls the breakout hit of the series.
