From Demon's Souls in 2009 to Elden Ring in 2022, the Souls series has come a long way. Within the span of just thirteen years, From Software released seven distinct role-playing games, launching the Japanese developer into a well-deserved mainstream spotlight.
Bide your time, learn your opponents' attack patterns, and Dark Souls will reward you with one of the most satisfying victories in gaming. A true Souls game is yet to make its way to your Android smartphone. But this doesn't mean there aren't plenty of competent clones, which is precisely why we've built this roundup of the best Souls-like games for your mobile device, games that perfectly capture the risk and reward of Dark Souls.
1 Dark Raider
Clearly boasting an inspiration or two from the Souls series, Dark Raider is an isometric role-playing game. Dark Raider presents you with a choice of several heroes, and each offers a different playstyle. Are you a warrior, capable of dishing out large amounts of damage, or a mage who prefers to stay at a distance while casting powerful spells?
Regardless of who you play as, you'll come up against uneven odds, such as a total of 23 bosses that tower well above you. The game adds an additional layer of challenge with its randomly generated levels. Every time you die in battle, the level and enemy placement are generated anew.
Presenting an influential model for Souls-likes on the Play Store, Dead Cells is a 2D, procedurally generated action platformer in which you play as a warrior exploring a dungeon.
Well, technically, you're a corpse reanimated by a failed science experiment, but that's neither here nor there. Gameplay-wise, you get 2D platforming interspersed with fluid hack-and-slash combat. Exploration is rewarded with money and new weapons for fending off fearsome enemies.
The game styles itself as "roguevania," with the exploration of a map being integral but occurring within a procedurally generated layout that changes upon death. If you're a sucker for procedurally generated runs and punishing difficulty, Dead Cells is highly recommended.
Certainly an ambitious title, Animus: Revenant places you in an isometric 3D world on a linear adventure to save the world. The Dark Souls influence is felt almost immediately with the introduction of the combat, which serves its purpose well, encouraging a multitude of battle approaches such as parrying, backstabs, blocking, and attacking with different weapons.
The game is not a hack-and-slash, and that is made very clear by the slow movement and disarming camera angle. The combat is centered around slow and methodical attacks, no running straight through this one.
Graphically, the game isn't stunning, but lower resolution can result in a superior frame rate. This is something that the original Dark Souls actually did. Just make sure you bring a beefy device; this is a demanding game.
Just one look at the screenshots and Revenant Knight's inspirations become apparent. From the protagonist donning a full suit of silver armor to undead enemies and towering bosses. The only thing that separates you from imminent death is a menacing greatsword.
Other than that, Revenant Knight features little to improve your odds. Any hope of victory depends on your abilities. No leveling up here. If you can defeat the dozens of enemies that the game throws at you, along with 14 humongous bosses, you've probably mastered the souls-like genre.
Our first Samurai-themed entry, Ronin: the last Samurai places you in control of a katana-wielding warrior facing down multiple foes in level-based waves. The combat feels very Sekiro-inspired, with much emphasis placed on the aggressive yet cautious approach to fighting.
Said combat uses touch controls to strike, block, parry, and activate special attacks, all of which respond very well and look gorgeous alongside the game's art style. The movement mechanics aren't great; your character moves extremely slowly around the arena, giving archers plenty of time for target practice. A simple game, but still a great time for fans of Nioh and Sekiro.
A standout game on the Play Store, Pascal's Wager is a bonafide Soul's like on the Android platform, with everything you would expect from such a product. Taking place in a dark western fantasy setting, the adorably named "Terrance" embarks on a quest through the hostile environment, acquiring items, talking to NPC, and killing everything that tries to kill you.
The interface is well-designed, with a smattering of action-dedicated buttons and a control stick for movement. Give it a shot; this one offers something special.
One of the better examples of a 2D hack-and-slash, Shadow of Death puts you in control of one of four warriors in a silhouetted world full of hostile creatures hellbent on killing you. Each avatar offers different abilities and playstyles, reminiscent of the build concept from the Souls series.
Combat against creatively designed enemies comes in wave-based levels, predictably fast-paced and stylish, with new abilities and usable items being unlocked as you play. There is a noticeable lack of exploration, but this is likely a limitation of the art style.
Any exploration of the silhouette environments would be visually confusing, after all. While it's not going to win any awards for art design, the combat in Shadow of Death is stylish to behold and satisfying to control, scratching that Devil May Cry itch as well as a Souls-like.
This is an interesting one, Way of Retribution takes the format of a 3D Souls-like, placing you into areas full of enemies with a boss to kill, but translates that to an MMORPG-style game, aesthetically evoking Neverwinter. Multiple starting classes can be selected at the beginning, all of which have different specializations for combat.
Said combat works as expected, you lock onto enemies and tap the icons for certain attacks. The big difference with this game is you can't just face the boss whenever you want; you must first complete several objectives within the level, imitating the quest linearity seen in the best MMORPG's. A strange kind of Souls-like, but certainly a unique blending of ideas that makes for an interesting experience. It's a quick download, so take a look.
Watcher Chronicles wastes no time establishing itself as a 2D Souls-like, spawning you in a dungeon with a sword and the armor on your back. The gameplay is similar to Blasphemous, only with a cleaner art style and less harrowing visual design. The combat is smooth, allowing for dodge rolling, blocking, and ranged combat to help you out in a jam.
While the cartoony art style can be a little unflattering here and there, it very quickly ramps up and reveals some truly exceptional enemy design, so Watcher Chronicles nails the fundamentals. The difficulty is well-balanced, the weapons feel satisfying, the bosses are cool, and the game actively encourages you to experiment with different play styles, as the best RPGs do.
Oddly similar to the previous entry, Grimvalor is a 2D Souls-like hack-and-slash with a focus on platforming and evasive combat. One big difference is Grimvalor pulls the camera way back, providing increased visibility of your surroundings, which is good news given the focus on precision platforming. You are given a double jump and a weirdly powerful dash for level traversal, which flows nicely with the combat.
Enemies telegraph their attacks fairly obviously, but not so much as to make things easy. The difficulty has a reasonable curve, with the basics being thoroughly tutorialized and hammered in before any kind of real challenge reveals itself. While aggressively linear and visually drab at times, Grimvalor plays nicely and makes you feel appropriately badass.
Spearheaded by Pascal's Wager and Revenant Knight, the Play Store is becoming an excellent source for Souls-like games. These games capture the tone, gameplay mechanics, and challenges typically associated with Dark Souls-inspired games on consoles and PC.
Do you agree with our list? Is there a Souls-like Android game that we missed? Be sure to mention it in the comments below.
FAQs
Are there any good Soulslike games? ›
Nioh / Nioh 2
Nioh is truly the king of all Soulslike games and the ultimate love letter to FromSoftware's design.
Released in 2019, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice had sold over 5 million copies by July 2020. Elden Ring is without a doubt the fastest-selling game in the history of Bandai Namco and FromSoftware, and has every chance of surpassing the total sales of the entire Dark Souls franchise in the future.
What is the game of the year 2023? ›Elden Ring, the acclaimed action role-playing game from renowned game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and fantasy writer George R. R. Martin, was awarded Game of the Year at the Game Developers Choice Awards on Wednesday—taking home three awards over the course of the night.
What is the oldest Soulslike? ›History. The Soulslike genre had its genesis in Demon's Souls (2009), developed by FromSoftware and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. It introduced the core tenets that would be followed by the Dark Souls series, such as the combat, death mechanics, multiplayer, storytelling, and dark fantasy setting.
Which Souls game is easiest? ›In many ways, Dark Souls 3 is the easiest Dark Souls game because FromSoft had ironed out many of the little problems from previous entries. Combat in that game is far more polished and faster than it was in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2.
What game is similar to Skyrim? ›The Dark Souls Series
This is perhaps the closest experience to Elden Ring in terms of gameplay and combat, though it's not nearly as open-world as FromSoftware's latest offering. That said, the worlds offered in the Dark Souls saga are just as dark, foreboding, and vastly imaginative as some of The Lands Between.
One Elden Ring player was not only successful in their attempt but was also able to complete the run without dying even a single time. FromSoftware games are supposed to be difficult, as the director of Elden Ring, Hidetaka Miyazaki has apologized to players that find the game to be too difficult.
Is Elden Ring one of the hardest games ever? ›Elden Ring is one of the most popular games in recent years, and also one of the hardest games of all time.
What is the best Soulsborne game for beginners? ›Demons Souls was the original game that started the Soulsborne genre. It's also comparatively easier than later Dark Souls games. This makes it a good step towards familiarizing yourself with the slower playstyle, and less developed quality of life features found in these older games.
Who is the hardest boss in the Souls series? ›
Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough are arguably the most challenging bosses in Souls-likes history.
What big game is on 2 12 2023? ›...
Super Bowl LVII.
| Ceremonies | |
|---|---|
| Network | Westwood One |
| Rank | Rank Last Month | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Hogwarts Legacy |
| 2 | 2 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) |
| 3 | 3 | Resident Evil 4 (2023) |
| 4 | NEW | Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor |
Dark Souls 2
The original game before the release of Scholar had many glaring issues between enemies, enemy placement, summoning friends, and more. It is by far the worst game to release in the franchise. One of the biggest issues that players suffered through was the original summoning system.
Dark Souls III (2016)
Released on March 24th, 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Dark Souls III is the last entry of the titular Dark Souls trilogy, barring an eventual remaster of the original.
Elden Ring is a More Advanced Form of Soulslike
The game takes after the enemy speed and complexity present in Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro, so one would assume it is more difficult than the oldest Souls titles.
1 Elden Ring (56 Hours)
Most of the Soulslike games are pretty linear in structure, which is why Elden Ring had so many fans intrigued going into its launch as it was a FromSoftware Soulslike that was a massive open world. Understandably so, it turned out to be the longest FromSoftware game by a decent amount.
Dark Souls 3 features the shortest average playtime out of all the games in the series.
What is the most forgiving Dark Souls game? ›As always, opinions will differ as to their order of difficulty, but Crown Of The Old Sunken King is a popular pick for the most 'forgiving' of the three. While this expansion has some rather deviously designed areas, the progression from boss to boss is relatively convenient and less complex.
What is better than Skyrim? ›- The Elder Scrolls Online. ...
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. ...
- Dragon Age Inquisition. ...
- Fallout 4. ...
- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. ...
- Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. ...
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance. ...
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
What game is bigger than Skyrim? ›
Oblivion, for example, is actually bigger than Skyrim's or Morrowind's map size, despite Cyrodiil being smaller or the same size as either province.
Is there better game than Skyrim? ›Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an easy recommendation for any player who wants to play games similar to Skyrim. The combat system is easily one of the more unique aspects of the game, and mastering it can take quite some time.
Which Souls game has the most content? ›Longest: Dark Souls 2 SOTFS. With the amount of bosses, plus the maps you traverse through the game almost feels longer due to those reasons alone. Plus the 3 DLC areas had a hefty amount of good content. I remember Crown of the Sunken King being very long my first 2 playthroughs.
Who is the best Souls boss? ›- The Old Monk – Demon's Souls. Old Monk | Demon's Souls. ...
- Great Grey Wolf Sif – Dark Souls. ...
- Fume Knight – Dark Souls II. ...
- Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower – Bloodborne. ...
- Dancer of the Boreal Valley – Dark Souls III. ...
- Isshin, The Sword Saint – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
- 6 Just Cause 3 - 400 Square Miles.
- 7 Death Stranding - 230 Square Miles. ...
- 8 Xenoblade Chronicles X - 154 Square Miles. ...
- 9 Arma 3 - 104 Square Miles. ...
- 10 Assassin's Creed Odyssey - 90 Square Miles. ...
- 11 DayZ - 86 Square Miles. ...
- 12 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 84 Square Miles. ...
Meanwhile, however, Elden Ring has been determined by Reddit user Lusty-Batch to weigh in at a whopping 79 square kilometers, or 30.5 square miles, making it more than twice the size of Skyrim.
Should I get Skyrim or Elden Ring? ›Despite the variety available in Skyrim's Dragon Shouts that make the game tons of fun, Elden Ring triumphs through the sheer number, comprehensiveness, and effectiveness of its spells and magic system. Elden Ring has taken Soulsborne's magic repertoire to the next level.
How easy is it to 100% Elden Ring? ›Technically, it's impossible to reach 100 percent due to the fact that there are branching point near the end, but you can certainly get pretty close." They also detail that players can finish the game without experiencing everything.
Who is the hardest Elden Ring player? ›The list is unsurprisingly topped by the infamously difficult Elden Ring boss Malenia, whose encounter was attempted some 329 million times, thus accounting for 5.5% of all in-game boss fights the players initiated to date.
Who was the fastest person to beat Elden Ring? ›Records of Elden Ring speedruns
Before LilAggy could bask in the glory of their victory, speedrunner Distortion2 managed beat their record by more than ten minutes, completing Elden Ring in an unbelievable 49 minutes and 29 seconds.
What is the hardest game to master? ›
Chess. Chess is famous for being a difficult game to master. Professional players dedicate years to learning all the different strategies in the game; they need to study continuously to keep up with the competition. Chess has baffled players for centuries.
What is the longest game in the world? ›What's the Overall Longest Game? According to HLTB, the crown for longest overall video game belongs to Melvor Idle, a Runescape-inspired idle/incremental game with an estimated playtime of 3,126 hours.
Is Elden Ring unnecessarily hard? ›Enlarge / Looks relaxing, doesn't it? Compared to games like that, Elden Ring just isn't very mechanically difficult. Most enemies telegraph their attacks with massive, seconds-long animations that give players plenty of time to react with a well-timed dodge, block, or parry.
Are the other souls games as good as Elden Ring? ›Elden Ring is a More Advanced Form of Soulslike
The two titles are about as obtuse as any other FromSoftware title, and while their level design can be just as treacherous, they just don't have the same sting that they once did. With that said, neither does Elden Ring.
The Dark Souls Series
This is perhaps the closest experience to Elden Ring in terms of gameplay and combat, though it's not nearly as open-world as FromSoftware's latest offering. That said, the worlds offered in the Dark Souls saga are just as dark, foreboding, and vastly imaginative as some of The Lands Between.
Those who simply want to button bash their way through Sekiro won't get very far. The game is easily the most unforgiving experience FromSoftware has ever crafted and is harder than any Souls game simply due to its lack of multiplayer and refusal to compromise.
What are all the Souls games? ›The Dark Souls games are understandably unapproachable for some, but Elden Ring appears much more welcoming, and is universally recommended. FromSoftware's Elden Ring is shaping up to be a monumental release, and even those who didn't like Dark Souls should give it a shot.
Is Bloodborne better than Elden Ring? ›Magic is notable mention when it comes to the graphics, as each spell looks eye-catching when cast. Bloodborne is by no means an unattractive game, and the look of its dark victorian streets has stood the test of time. But in a head-to-head comparison, Elden Ring clearly comes out ahead.
What is the best Dark Souls game for beginners? ›
5 reasons 'Elden Ring' is the easiest Souls game to get into. The Dark Souls series by From Software — and the slew of successors it spawned — is famous for its uniquely challenging, unforgiving gameplay. Sometimes that manifests in the form of enigmatic puzzles or unexplained gameplay mechanics.
What religion is in Elden Ring? ›The Golden Order is the largest set of beliefs on the Lands Between. The largest symbols of this faith are the Elden Ring, the Erdtree, and Queen Marika the Eternal. The Golden Order was initially created when Queen Marika the Eternal confined the Rune of Death, making herself and her demigod offspring immortal.
What is the hardest boss in Elden Ring? ›The list is unsurprisingly topped by the infamously difficult Elden Ring boss Malenia, whose encounter was attempted some 329 million times, thus accounting for 5.5% of all in-game boss fights the players initiated to date.
Which is harder Dark Souls or Elden Ring? ›Are you wondering whether Elden Ring is harder or easier than Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro? The answer: It's the hardest FromSoftware game so far, harder than Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro – if you play it legit without abusing exploits/cheese methods.
Is Sekiro harder than Bloodborne? ›Sekiro is the hardest to master by far! Dark/Demon's Souls you can block and roll & Bloodborne you can regen health by attacking... if you don't parry in Sekiro, you're boned! I would say sekiro but I think that's just because I couldn't get a hang of the parrying system.