A recent sentiment flooding the internet lately is that the Souls-like genre is getting too crowded. While this frustration was mostly bubbling underneath the surface for so long, what truly sparked a fire online were two separate instances. One was a video by famous YouTuber and Streamer MoistCritikal where he talked about being exhausted by Souls-likes and expressed many of his frustrations with the genre.
The other was a statement by Hideo Kojima in an interview where he talks about the state of the industry, talking about his experience watching Summer Games Fest and being disappointed when most games had you fighting either an alien monster or a medieval monster.
“Even the visuals and the systems are pretty much the same, and a lot of people enjoy this, I understand, but it is important to put something really new in there for the industry.”
With all this taken into account, we now get to the question: “Do we really have too many Souls-likes?”
The Souls-like Dilemma
Well, if Wuchang is anything to go by, maybe we aren’t really asking the right question. Maybe the right question goes something like “Would this game really benefit from being a Souls-like?”
In the case of Wuchang, before answering that, I think it’s important to outline where I’m coming from and provide a bit of my experience with the game. With the exception of Elden Ring Nightreign, I’ve played every single FromSoftware game since Demon’s Souls and have even gone back to play their other stuff such as Shadow Tower and King’s Field. Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 are among my favorite games of all time.
In my eyes, the secret sauce that makes a Souls-like tick is level design and exploration. It’s why series fans still gush over the interconnected world design of the Dark Souls 1’s first half, and it’s why Demon’s Souls is my favorite game in the series.
In both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, each location feels expansive, with winding routes and elaborate layouts full of hidden nooks and crannies, whether it’s the terrifying claustrophobic hallways and jail cells of Tower of Latria or the sadistic traps of Sen’s Fortress. As a player, going through these levels feels like conquering a location made to break you down, and charting your way through them feels as satisfying as defeating any imposing boss.
However, most souls imitators like Lies of P — which I have to add is among the best and my favorite of these souls imitators — tend to opt for simpler, largely linear level design where you only occasionally go off the beaten path for a small item or two. Compare this to Dark Souls 1, where it’s possible to miss entire optional bosses such as the Stray Demon and even whole levels when it comes to the Painted World and the contrast becomes quite striking.
Treacherous Expeditions
So, imagine my surprise as I jumped into Wuchang expecting a standard Souls-like and ended up spending a 3-hour session completely lost and fighting for my life in a massive level that just kept getting bigger and bigger. I reached a point where I was almost convinced that I was playing an open world game as the level kept opening up, leading me into entire sub-zones with its own unique enemies and even unique boss fights.
What made it even better was the lack of shrines to save my progress which is one aspect of these games that has been lost over the years and something that even FromSoftware is guilty of. Checkpoints have become significantly less important as these games have progressed, and it has gotten progressively easier to just run through the levels because the next checkpoint is always around the corner. In Wuchang however, I have to carefully manage my healing and resources because I know the next checkpoint is not going to show up anytime soon.
One of my initial sessions from the first level of the game had me taking a detour which led me to a bunch of side areas; initially confident, I kept exploring while employing liberal use of my 4 healing flasks. As my expedition progressed, I ended up in a whole new area with only a single flask left. Still somewhat confident, since I was expecting a shrine somewhere in the area, I went on. Barely a few steps in, all my confidence immediately transformed into a dreadful anxiety, as the first gunshot hit me from the rooftops and took out a quarter of my health and with it, my last flask; I realized there was no shrine here and that dying here meant going back almost 40 minutes and having to retrace my steps all the way back from the level’s hub area.
Nevertheless, I pushed on, falling back on those rabbit dumpling things that work kind of like lifegems from Dark Souls 2. Managing to fill only a meagre health with each use and pushing through what felt like ambush after ambush, I finally came to a large open plaza guarded by a mini-boss, with a detour on the left that would have me avoiding him for the time being.
I immediately ran for the detour.
The detour led me to a narrow wooden bridge; I nervously crossed it hoping for yet another cruel trap at any moment. Up a large set of stairs and one enemy dog later, a wave of relief washed over me when I spotted a shrine. I cashed in all my EXP, saved and just leaned back against the chair for a few moments breathing a sigh of relief.
It was by far one of the best moments I have ever had playing a Souls-like since Demon’s Souls and instantly cemented Wuchang as one of my favorites in the whole genre.
Coming back to my question of whether it benefits from being a Souls-like or not. I think it absolutely does. Wuchang is one of the rare entries that takes the right lessons from what came before and provides something actually unique in the genre (at least in the sense that it provides something that has been largely lost in this genre). It takes nearly everything that I appreciate in a Souls-like and puts it in one package.
It’s why even if I have problems with the game (the PC performance is abysmal, and the combat hasn’t quite clicked with me yet) I can’t help but love it, and it really shows that there’s nothing quite like these games when they’re actually done right.
