
Any soulslike game—usually characterised by a rigid checkpoint system, weighty combat, punishing deaths, and deep RPG customisation—is going to be compared to Dark Souls. It is what it is.
Yet in 2023, something interesting happened. Four big soulslikes—Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty—borrowed far more from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a FromSoftware game that lot of my fellow masochistic mates bounced right off back in 2019.