Summary
There are so many Soulslikes these days. It feels like every week a new Soulslike game is coming out and trying to innovate on the genre in some way. And while a lot of games fail to bring something new to the table, an equal or even greater amount of games manage to succeed.
Additionally, in terms of story, most of these Soulslike games are incredibly unique. There areSoulslikes about storybook worlds, Soulslikes based in a far-off future, and Soulslikes that are essentially a different flavor of theDark Soulssetting. But, there aren’t a ton of Soulslikes that manage to blend both fantasy and sci-fi in their worlds, or at least not a lot that do it well. With that in mind, let’s cover some of the best games that do manage to achieve this.
First up isHellpoint, the game that arguably blends these two genres of media the best.Hellpointis a game entirely built around both cosmic horror elements and eldritch horror elements. This game takes place on a space station by the name of Irid Novo, which orbits a massive black hole.
Essentially the entirety of humanity lives on this ship, and after meddling in aspects of the universe they should not, most of humanity lost their minds and became these horrifying creatures after their mind and bodies merged with multiple versions of themselves across timelines. This game has multiversal horror elements so strong that it gained the attention of the ‘old gods’ of this universe, which is maybe one of the most unique concepts for a game we’ve seen in a long time.
Next isLies of P, a more recent Soulslikes and a contender for maybe the best Soulslike game out there outside of the From Software Souls games.Lies of P’sstory is basically a version of the classic Pinocchio fairytale, but more of the Brothers Grimm version of the story than anything else. Blended with this story is also the story of where alchemists try and pursue eternal life using puppets, the philosopher’s stone, and a whole lot of forbidden rituals.
This game is very similar toBloodbornein the sense that, at first, the setting of the game seems to be horrifying in a pretty clear-to-understand way. But, as playersget further and further into the game, the actual horror hiding behind it is a lot scarier and a lot more confusing.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, at the time of writing this, is themost recently released Soulslike on here. In this game, the dead have basically driven humanity into a corner, making it incredibly difficult for them to survive each day. In an attempt to stop this, Nor and a bunch of other ‘Sappers’ (AKA soldiers) attempt to collapse the gate that the dead are crawling out from. However, in failing to do this, they destroy a barrier that is holding back the gods themselves from invading their world.
Now, Nor and Enki (a minor god) are on a journey to rectify this mistake, encountering all sorts of other gods along the way.The sci-fi aspects of this gamemostly have to do with the level of technology found in the game as well as the black powder inventions. Meanwhile, the fantasy elements obviously come from the magic these deities invading the world possess and give to others, including Nor.
Moving to a lesser-known Soulslike, but one that’s still incredibly fun to play,Thymesia.Thymesiais a lot more fast-paced in terms of its combat than a lot of other Soulslikes, and it tries some really creative things with both its gameplay systems and its story. Essentially, inThymesia, the world is ravaged by a plague, with a lot of the sick being exiled altogether or directly turning into monsters. However, thanks to the study of alchemy, a cure is introduced.
As it turns out, certain nobles with ‘pure blood’ were innately immune to this plague as well. However, eventually, a new strain of this plague is found that also affects those with pure blood, so further experimentation is done that involves fusing people with trees (as a certain in-universe tree seemed to absorb the plague from those in its surroundings) or fusing them with other monsters. So, it’s safe to say that this game both fits the sci-fi and fantasy definitions, and we didn’t even mention any of the gameplay mechanics.
BothRemnant: From the Ashesand its sequel game,Remnant 2, are perfect games to include on this list. In theRemnantgames, the player explores a variety of other worlds or ‘realms’ each with their own histories, magic, technology, and more. Of course, all of these realms are fighting the same common enemy, the Root, but that’s basically where the similarities end. to give a few examples, inRemnant: From the Ashes, there’s a forest world where a sentient race of doe-people use magic (Yaesha), a desert world where the magicians use the equivalent of a nuclear bomb to keep the Root out (Rhom), and there’s a swamp realm where fantasy elves were overtaken by an insect hivemind (Corsus).
Remnant 2also has a bunch of settings that would fit on this list including Losomn and N’Erud,with N’Erud even getting some more story to exploresometime in the near future. This is all to say that theRemnantgames, and even its prequel gameChronos: Before the Ashes, are some of the strongest examples to include on this list.
Steelrisingis one of the examples on this listthat just barely makes the cut, as it’s more of a sci-fi Soulslikes than a blend of sci-fi and fantasy. Essentially, this game takes place during the French Revolution, but in a world where robotics have advanced enough that sentient robots with their own identity exist. The story elements of this game have a lot of similarities toLies of P, given that one game is about sentient robots and the other about sentient puppets, but there are still some magical or at least advanced alchemical components of Steelrising that just barely qualify it as a fantasy setting as well.
Enotria: The Last Song, is an odd game to include here because at the time of writing this, which is the 12th of August 2024,the game isn’t out yet. However, there are plenty of people with early codes of the game who have shown enough footage to prove thatEnotriabelongs here.
Enotriaabsolutely is more based around the fantasy definition than the sci-fi one, but there’s enough evidence of technological advancement in this story that the sci-fi description can (loosely) work as well. Time will tell how much sci-fi this game will have, given that it’s built on Italian folklore, but at the very least the Rift system where the player swaps between different states of reality to solve puzzles seems to be more sci-fi than magic.
Unsightedis the least ‘Soulslike’ game on here, functioning more as an open-world Metroidvania or dungeon crawler. However, it does still have the Soulslike label, and it absolutely has a setting where magic and sci-fi intermingle. Essentially, in this setting, humanity is gone, replaced by the advanced robotics they had invented. A meteor had crashed into Earth in this setting, giving off an energy and/or substance that gave sentience and unique identities to any robot exposed to it.
However, at the time whenUnsightedtakes place, that energy is basically gone, and any robot that runs out of this energy devolves into a mindless robot or ‘monster’. This aspect of Unsighted’s story is one of the most unique parts of the game and is expertly blended with the game mechanics, as the player is literally on a time limit from the minute they start the game for each character they meet.
Now let’s talk about another really recent Soulslike (at the time of writing this),Deathbound.Deathboundis a game all about swapping between multiple characters, typically mid-combat. However, the player doesn’t actually control multiple individual characters, it turns out all of the characters are actually sharing the same body. In this setting, there are people, known as Essencemancers, who can interact with the souls of others and even use magic with these souls as a resource.
With this ability, the Essencemancers go down the taboo route of trying to figure out how to give humanity immortality, something that the predominant religion of this setting, the Church of Death, cannot stand by. So, the Church of Death goes to war against the Essencemancers, which is where the first controllable character of this game, Therone Guillaumen, is introduced.Deathboundis a game with a ton of interesting sci-fi and fantasy concepts, it’s just a bit of a shamethe actual gameplay ofDeathboundisn’t a bit tighter.
Last up is an obvious inclusion, which are both of theStar WarsSoulslike games. TheStar WarsIP is already one that can be described as both a fantasy IP and a sci-fi IP. These stories take place in a far-off time, where humanity’s technology has long since advanced past traveling to and terraforming new planets.
However, there’s also a core element of fantasy magic in this IP, the Force. The Force can be described with science in-universe using midi-chlorians, but for all intents and purposes, the Force is a type of magic that the Jedi and Sith are users of. As such,Cal Kestis' games, AKAJedi: Fallen OrderandJedi: Survivor, are obviously games that fit the definition of both fantasy and sci-fi.
