10 Best Survival Games With Soulslike...

Ever since Dark Souls was released, players have become gluttons for punishment. They want punishing bosses, stamina-based combat systems, and little hand-holding. Interestingly, those elements also make for some great survival games.

I play a lot of survival games. They’re sort of my thing. While I tend to play more relaxing survival games–those verging into the cozy genre–now and then, I like a dose of realism with my survival. Punishing environments, dangerous creatures, and stamina-focused mechanics are key things that interest me. Throw in some story, and I’m sold.

Survival games can, admittedly, get stale after a while. That’s why some of the most interesting and successful survival games feature a steep difficulty curve from the start. These best survival games with Soulslike elements force you to learn fast or die fast.

We focused on the following Soulslike elements to determine which survival games feature them best: Challenging bosses, stamina-focused mechanics, environmental storytelling, little to no hand-holding, and a steep difficulty curve.

10

Bellwright

Say Goodbye To Your Village

Bellwright will often have you wondering why you bothered to build a village in the first place. The game tasks you with building a settlement with the goal of making an army to overthrow the baron, who is taxing his people to the point of death.

Getting to that point is rough, which is what makes Bellwright a great survival game with Soulslike elements. You basically start from nothing, and if you try to tangle with bandits before you’re ready, you’re going to feel pretty powerless in this survival game. Bandits hit hard, and you’re wearing nothing but some scraps on your back.

Combat also mimics the system used in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, using directional combat instead of a standard button mash. Add in the fact that each swing and block with a shield eats into your stamina, and you can bet that the combat system alone is challenging enough for any Soulslike fan to enjoy.

Aside from battling bandits and trying to take over regions of the area, you also have to protect your own village. As you grow in strength, bandits will start attacking your village, too. I often find myself running around in Bellwright like a chicken with its head cut off. There’s so much to prepare that before I know it, the raiders have killed half my villagers and stolen my hard-earned goods.

You’ll want to have a lot of patience to play Bellwright.

9

Smalland: Survive The Wilds

The Bugs Fight Back

When I first played Smalland: Survive the Wilds, I thought I was entering into a whimsical backyard where I’d play as a fairy and basically have an enchanting time. I discovered that the backyard is full of dangerous bugs that seem to have a preference for fairy meat.

Don’t let this game’s whimsy fool you. It’s tough. As a Vanguard, you’re tasked with helping out your local fairies and establishing encampments in the dangerous outside world. Most bugs are larger than you, so you’re basically at the bottom of the food chain. The game likes to remind you of that, too.

From bees to horrific rhino beetles, practically everything is out to eat you. Now, you can certainly tame creatures and play with friends to try and make the game easier, but each time a friend joins your server, the difficulty of the world increases. You’ll never have an easy time exploring or getting from one place to the next.

There are also bosses scattered throughout the world that you need to defeat to unlock new crafting recipes. These bosses are even more challenging than just the bugs skittering about the world. You’ll likely find yourself dying a few times before you learn the strategy behind defeating them.

Soulslike veterans know the drill from there.

8

Soulmask

Build Your Tribe

A key feature of most Soulslike games is that they let you explore at your own pace. They don’t hold your hand and expect you to figure everything out on your own. Soulmask offers the same sort of experience. As soon as I awakened from a ritual that earned me a powerful mask, I made the mistake of thinking I could take on a small bandit camp all by myself.

I very quickly died. Lesson learned, I turned my attention to building up a tribe instead. Soulmask allows you to play on your own without a tribe if you wish, but if you want to overcome the various bandits, dangerous animals, and cults in the world, you’re going to need help. Tribe members also handle productivity at the base, mixing in some Medieval Dynasty as well.

The game really shines with combat, even if it’s pretty tough. There are several weapon types in the game, and a huge skill tree that lets you build out the type of fighter you want. It’s the mask that really makes Soulmask stand out from others, though.

You can possess anyone you come across in Soulmask, taking their talents and abilities as your own. It’s even possible to take their appearance. In many cases, you’ll need to defeat the NPC in combat first, but once taken down, you can Kirby your way to defeating the next boss.

7

Grounded

It Packs A Punch

Grounded may seem too whimsical to offer a Soulslike experience, but after encountering your first wolf spider, you’ll quickly change your mind. Wolf spiders are only the first of many terrifying bosses that Grounded has in store for its pebble-sized players. Just like many Soulslike games, its bosses have arenas that require players to get through puzzles and difficult enemies to reach.

The boss fights aren’t easy, either. While you can craft weapons and armor out of bugs that you defeat, it takes strategy to conquer many of the bosses in the game. Some fights, like the Infected Broodmother, can even be so frustrating that they could inspire you to rage quit.

Now, the whole gimmick of Grounded is that you’re a kid in the late 1980s shrunk down to a size that’s even smaller than an ant. You end up in the backyard, which basically looks like a jungle with a few backyard staples thrown in, like a sandbox and a mini pond. The sheer size of everything gives a Soulslike feeling, too.

In Dark Souls and its sequels, the world feels vast and even empty at times. It makes you feel small compared to the great dangers lurking out there. Grounded does the same. While it feels a bit more alive, seeing a huge house and picnic table, or even a sizable juice box, makes the world feel grandiose.

6

RuneScape: Dragonwilds

Dragons Are The Least Of It

Most Soulslike games require you to fight through some minor enemies before reaching the big boss. However, even those mundane enemies can sometimes be a whole challenge themselves. That’s exactly the sort of experience that RuneScape: Dragonwilds offers. When I first picked up the game, I thought the real threat was the dragons. It’s actually everything that comes before the dragon.

That’s not to say that the dragon fights aren’t Soulslike-worthy. They’re tough and require a few deaths to learn and strategize before you take them down properly. It’s just that the enemies who roam about the land, and who especially fill the world’s dungeons, are also just as tough.

Part of the reason these enemies are so challenging is that RuneScape: Dragonwilds uses a difficulty scaling system based on the number of players in a world. So, if you’re playing with friends, each friend who joins the fun increases the difficulty of the enemies in the world.

Let’s not forget that raids on your base can happen at any time. So, even after just clearing a dungeon that took most of your potions to get through, you may find yourself smack dab in the middle of a raid. It can take a while to recover from a significant loss like death, especially since you drop your items upon death.

RuneScape: Dragonwilds is far more challenging than its beautiful world would suggest.

5

V Rising

Fight Bosses To Fight Bosses

Fighting bosses in Dark Souls and other Soulslike games has a purpose. They’re basically gatekeepers. Sometimes you fight them to get through an area, other times because they offer some sort of weapon or ability. V Rising also uses boss fights as a way to progress through the game. They’re not just keeping you from progressing into the next area, though.

Bosses in V Rising come with certain skill, item, or crafting recipe unlocks. For example, fighting the very first boss, the Alpha Wolf, unlocks the ability to transform into a wolf. The wolf shape allows the player to run faster on the map, which can be handy when you’re running away from overwhelming enemies or the damaging sun.

The bosses are also challenging. They often require you to make certain weapons or wear a certain type of armor to make fighting them easier. Those weapons and armor pieces come from a boss before them. You can technically fight the bosses in any order, but there’s a method to the madness if you want to make the fights just a bit easier.

Dying frequently is another hallmark of V Rising, and why it makes for a great Soulslike. It’s worth trying out a boss to see what abilities they have, and any other surprises in the boss fight, then dying and preparing yourself better for the real fight next time.

4

Valheim

Stamina Is Everything

Valheim took the survival game niche by storm when it released. Before Valheim, survival games followed the same sort of gameplay loops and mechanics. One of the core changes that Valheim brought to the survival game genre was its emphasis on stamina-based mechanics.

Stamina-based mechanics are another common feature of Soulslike games. Players have to monitor their use of stamina to ensure they have enough energy to land that blow or dodge out of the way of an attack. Don’t manage your stamina well, and it’s lights out.

Valheim allows players to boost their stamina by eating food, with higher-quality food giving players the best boost. You’ll want as much stamina as possible to face the bosses in the game. Even other enemies that roam the different biomes in Valheim, like the trolls in the Black Forest, require careful thought and strategy to defeat.

Valheim’s focus on defeating bosses to beat the game, at least its story, is another reason it has Soulslike elements. After you land on this island, you quickly discover there are a number of bosses that you need to defeat to prove yourself worthy. They unlock certain recipes, too, but you can bet they won’t be easy to beat.

Boosting your stamina as much as possible is essential for survival in Valheim, and there’s not a Grass Crest Shield in sight.

3

Outward

No Heroic Adventurers Here

In most Soulslike games, you tend to feel like you’re the last great hero capable of getting things done. You’re not always a hero exactly, but you are someone chosen for greatness. Outward offers a similar experience. You start off as basically no one. You’re a lighthouse keeper whose family owes the town a blood price.

Eventually, however, you’re called off to start traveling and seeing the world. You’re not exactly trained for adventuring, though, so each time you step outside of the town, there’s a really good chance that you’ll wind up dead (or maybe I just have wildly bad luck). Outward is a Soulslike game because it does its best to remind you just how weak you are.

It also uses a stamina-based mechanic for fighting, and you have an energy bar to keep an eye on, too. Become too exhausted and you’ll handicap your stamina meter. Survival is typically slim when that happens. Fighting is even best avoided when you can. The mundane enemies out there pack just as much of a wallop as bosses.

If you’ve ever wanted to experience what it’s really like being a low-level adventurer who just decided to leave home one day on a whim, then Outward will give you a realistic experience. It’s crushingly hard, and since time matters in the game, every failure can cost you in the long run, too.

2

Conan Exiles

Grim And God-Tier Boss Fights

Conan Exiles and I go way back. I was surviving the harsh wasteland long before Funcom restructured its quality system and crafting progression tiers. One core element of Conan Exiles that has remained true since its inception is just how brutal it is. Even in its opening scene, it basically tells you to buckle up.

In Conan Exiles, everything wants to kill you. There are enemies, wild animals, and even players who want to take you down and steal your hard-earned resources. What really makes this game similar to Soulslike games, however, is its god-tier bosses.

There are entities called Avatars in Conan Exiles. They’re basically gods. Players can call down Avatars after completing a number of challenging steps and requirements. Typically, only the biggest tribes on a server have the strength and power to do so, and they often use them to destroy other big tribes.

Calling upon an Avatar has a god appear and wreak havoc on someone’s base. If you’re on the receiving end of one of these, you can expect one of the toughest fights of your life. They’re not impossible to destroy, especially if you have the means of summoning an Avatar, too, but it’ll be hard-won. The victory will taste that much better, too.

1

Enshrouded

Perfect Blend Of Survival And Soulslike

Enshrouded has the perfect blend of survival and Soulslike elements. It’s set in a grim and broken world that only you can survive, and even then, at great peril. It has challenging dungeons filled with enemies that can test even the best player’s setup and skills. It also has bosses that can wreck the unprepared.

As a survival game, Enshrouded scratches a lot of my itches. It’s one of the best AA multiplayer games everyone needs to play if you love survival games. Its base building is probably the best I’ve encountered so far, and it uses Valheim’s stamina-based mechanic to encourage you to make high-quality food and eat it before running into battle.

As for its Soulslike elements, you can expect a number of challenging bosses that you need to overcome. Not only do you need the resources these bosses drop to upgrade your base further, but they also often drop items you can use to create better gear or even just new decorations for your base. The combat in Enshrouded isn’t easy, especially if you’re choosing a melee-based build.

Leveling is slow, too, so you’ll need to do a lot of grinding by fighting weaker enemies, crafting, and mining to earn XP. Enshrouded has tons to offer both survival and Soulslike fans, and you may find it easy to lose hours to this game.