Best Games Like Dark Souls
The best games like Dark Souls for players who love punishing combat, cryptic worlds, and the rush of finally beating that boss.
Something happens after you finish Dark Souls. The interconnected shortcuts of Lordran, the weight of every stamina-draining swing, the quiet triumph of unlocking a door and realizing you’ve looped back to a bonfire from hours ago. Those things burrow in deep. Other action games start feeling too forgiving, too eager to hand you victories you didn’t earn. The craving is specific: you want combat that punishes recklessness and rewards observation, worlds that trust you to figure things out on your own, and that particular rush of beating a boss that killed you twenty times.
The good news is that the well runs deeper than you might expect. FromSoftware kept iterating on their own formula in wildly different directions, and independent studios found ways to translate that Souls philosophy into formats FromSoftware never attempted. These seven games each scratch a different part of the Dark Souls itch, from direct sequels that refine the original’s combat to 2D side-scrollers that capture its spirit in entirely new dimensions. Not all of them look like Dark Souls. All of them feel like they understood what made it matter.
The Trilogy’s Most Polished Send-Off
The most obvious next step after Dark Souls is Dark Souls III, and it’s obvious for good reason. Released in 2016 with series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki back in the director’s chair, it takes the faster, more aggressive combat pacing that Bloodborne introduced and folds it into the Dark Souls framework of shields, spells, and deep weapon variety. The result is the most refined combat in the trilogy. Every weapon class feels distinct, the weapon arts system adds special attacks tied to each armament, and build diversity across strength, dexterity, magic, and faith keeps the game fresh across multiple playthroughs.
Boss design hits its highest point here. The encounters in the base game range from intimidating to unforgettable, and both DLC expansions push that quality even further. The Ringed City in particular is widely considered an outstanding conclusion to the entire Dark Souls story, with boss fights and level design that represent the peak of the series. What Dark Souls III trades in structural ambition (the world is more linear than Lordran’s interconnected masterpiece) it gains in moment-to-moment polish. If you loved the combat of Dark Souls but wished it were faster and tighter, this is the answer. Rated 4.5 stars.
An Open World That Rewards Getting Lost
Elden Ring is where FromSoftware asked a question nobody expected: what happens when you take the Souls formula and drop it into a massive open world? The answer turned out to be the studio’s biggest hit by a wide margin. Released in 2022 with a world co-created alongside novelist George R.R. Martin, Elden Ring builds the Lands Between as a place full of optional dungeons, hidden areas, and surprises the game never marks on your map. Discovery feels genuine because the game trusts you to find things on your own, and the reward for poking around a suspicious wall or following a hidden path is almost always something meaningful.
For Dark Souls fans specifically, the open-world structure solves a problem the original game never tried to address. Hit a wall on a boss? Leave, explore somewhere else, find a new weapon, level up, and come back stronger. That flexibility makes Elden Ring the most accessible entry point into the Souls formula without lowering the skill ceiling for veterans who want to rush straight into endgame content. Combat carries a decade of refinement, with build variety that players are still discovering years after launch. Late-game balance issues and reused bosses take some shine off the final stretch, but the first sixty or so hours represent some of the finest action RPG design ever assembled. Rated 4.7 stars.
Sekiro’s Singular Bet on the Blade
If Dark Souls is about builds and options, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is about stripping all of that away and betting everything on one mechanic. Released in 2019 and set in a reimagined Sengoku-era Japan, Sekiro ditches RPG elements, character builds, multiplayer, and weapon variety in favor of a single system: deflection. You stand your ground and parry incoming strikes with precise timing. Successful deflections fill an enemy’s posture gauge, and breaking that posture opens them up for a killing blow. The result turns every encounter into a rhythmic exchange that feels closer to a conversation between two swords than a traditional action game fight.
This is the recommendation for players who loved the boss fights in Dark Souls above everything else. Sekiro’s bosses are widely considered among the best FromSoftware has ever created, each one teaching you something new about the combat system and demanding that you read attack patterns, adjust your timing, and use the right prosthetic tools at the right moments. The tradeoff is real, though. One sword, no builds, no multiplayer, no difficulty options. Replay value drops once you’ve mastered the system. But that singular focus is also what makes Sekiro special. Players consistently describe it as the most satisfying combat system FromSoftware has ever built, the kind of game that makes every other action title feel just a little bit slower once you’ve internalized its rhythms. Rated 4.5 stars.
Hallownest and the 2D Souls Philosophy
Dark Souls’ influence doesn’t stop at three dimensions. Hollow Knight, released in 2017 by a three-person studio called Team Cherry, translates the Souls philosophy into a 2D Metroidvania with results that rival anything FromSoftware has produced. Hallownest is a vast underground kingdom of insects, built as an interconnected structure where zones each carry their own visual identity and atmosphere. Forgotten Crossroads feels nothing like the lush Greenpath, which feels nothing like the oppressive darkness of Deepnest. Sound familiar? That same sense of a world designed as a single organism, with shortcuts and hidden connections rewarding exploration, is exactly what makes Lordran special.
Combat starts simple with a nail for striking and a dash for dodging, then expands through a charm system that allows deep build customization. Over 30 boss fights demand pattern recognition and careful execution, delivering victories that feel earned because the game never hands them out for free. Hand-drawn art and Christopher Larkin’s haunting soundtrack create an atmosphere players describe as melancholy and beautiful in equal measure. Navigation frustrations and punishing difficulty spikes will test patience, particularly before fast-travel options open up. Four free content expansions after launch pushed an already substantial game into something enormous. For the Dark Souls player who values interconnected world design and environmental storytelling above all else, Hollow Knight is the closest thing to that experience in two dimensions. Rated 4.7 stars.
Religious Horror and the Weight of Penance
Blasphemous 2 arrived in 2023 as a focused sequel that understood exactly what to keep and what to fix from its predecessor. The Game Kitchen built on the original’s brutal combat and unforgettable religious horror imagery while smoothing out the rough edges. The biggest addition is a weapon trinity. Three distinct weapons, each with its own moveset and traversal ability, create genuine variety in how encounters play out. Switching between them means fights feel different depending on your approach, and the community has praised how each weapon carries its own identity rather than functioning as a simple stat variation.
Level design improved dramatically, with interconnected shortcuts and secret areas that reward backtracking with new abilities. Boss encounters feel mechanically fair while maintaining genuine difficulty, a balance the original sometimes missed. The pixel art is spectacular, with grotesque beauty in its religious imagery and fluid animations that make the medium feel limitless. Some players feel the game wraps up before it exhausts all its ideas, and the storytelling remains deliberately cryptic. But for Dark Souls fans drawn to atmospheric world-building and demanding combat with a striking visual identity, Blasphemous 2 delivers both with confidence. Rated 4.2 stars.
The Roguelite That Teaches Through Death
Dead Cells might not look like an obvious Dark Souls comparison at first glance. Motion Twin’s 2018 roguelite blends procedurally generated levels with fast 2D combat, and the structure of dying and restarting from scratch feels miles from Dark Souls’ bonfire system. But the core philosophy is the same. Every death teaches you something. Every run builds knowledge that translates into tangible progress. The shift from confusion to competence, from flailing against enemies to reading their patterns and dismantling them, is the exact same arc that makes Dark Souls click.
Combat is fast, responsive, and endlessly satisfying. Weapons range from swords and bows to more creative options, and the variety encourages experimentation between runs. Permanent upgrades carry across attempts, unlocking new paths and abilities that expand what’s possible without cheapening the challenge. Years of DLC and free updates added enormous amounts of content to the base game, giving it remarkable longevity. Higher difficulty tiers push the balance from challenging toward punishing, and weapon balance can feel uneven with such a large item pool. But the core loop of fighting, dying, learning, and coming back stronger is as good as this genre gets. Rated 4.5 stars.
Deflection Reimagined Through Chinese Mythology
Nine Sols is the newest game on this list and one of the most surprising. Red Candle Games, a studio known for atmospheric horror titles like Detention and Devotion, pivoted to a parry-focused action platformer in 2024 and delivered something that stands on its own merits. The combat system is built almost entirely around deflection, translating Sekiro’s philosophy into a 2D format. Successful parries fill a Qi meter that lets you slap talismans onto enemies that then detonate for massive damage. The loop of parry into talisman into explosion creates a rhythm that feels incredible once it clicks.
Boss encounters showcase this system at its best, operating like violent puzzles where the first several attempts serve as learning experiences while you catalog attack patterns and timing windows. The hand-drawn art is spectacular across every frame, and the blend of science fiction with ancient Chinese mythology gives Nine Sols a cultural identity that sets it apart from the crowd of Souls-inspired indie games. Story depth surprised many players, weaving themes of betrayal and duty through the action with emotional weight that caught the community off guard. Difficulty runs brutal, with near-frame-perfect parry timing and bosses capable of killing in two or three hits. Pacing stumbles during extended narrative sequences. But for players who loved Sekiro’s deflection system and want that intensity in a different setting, Nine Sols is the closest anyone has come to matching that specific satisfaction. Rated 4.0 stars.
Choosing Your Next Challenge
Seven games, seven different answers to the same question. The right pick depends on which part of Dark Souls hooked you hardest. If it was the combat and boss design, Dark Souls III and Sekiro refine those elements to their sharpest. If it was the sense of exploring a world that connects in surprising ways, Hollow Knight and Elden Ring deliver that feeling with different scales and perspectives. If the atmosphere and visual identity drew you in, Blasphemous 2 and Nine Sols each bring a distinct aesthetic that rivals FromSoftware’s best work. And if it was the loop of dying, learning, and growing stronger, Dead Cells distills that cycle into something you can pick up for twenty minutes or lose a whole evening to.
None of these games are easy. All of them respect your time by demanding your attention. That’s the thread that connects everything on this list back to the game that started it. Dark Souls proved that difficulty paired with fair design creates meaning. Every game here took that lesson and found its own way to deliver on the promise.