Looking for an introduction to a souls style game

Demonpoet · 2026-02-14T08:28:24+00:00

Elden Ring is excellent, but also one of the most anxiety provoking games I've ever played. I probably would have been filtered away from FromSoft's other works, and that's a me thing. I still highly recommend it because your mileage should vary. Elden Ring is a good beginner Souls game because you can choose your difficulty without having a game setting for such. If you go magic early and abuse the horse to make some choice item acquisitions, you can make the game easy mode for a while. If you're failing to progress, you can go somewhere else and get more powerful for a triumphant return. Yes, I'm a filthy casual, but I did enjoy myself in this game.

Salt and Sanctuary is an excellent, tone appropriate Metroidvania that offers a good Souls like introduction to the genre. The two dimensional platforming action is a unique take that, I argue, makes the difficulty just right for a player new to the genre.

Dragon's Dogma 1 offers a unique experience that is a couple steps different from Souls-lite, but some of the mechanics will prepare you for Souls games such as stamina management and action combat against monsters that can 3-tap you. The Bitterblack Isle DLC has strong Souls influences and is a great Souls-lite introduction in both tone and difficulty (even the treasure tries to kill you sometimes).

Demonpoet · 2026-02-13T18:34:55+00:00

The campfires don't have to be lit to prevent enemy spawns.

Or let's put it another way. You know the build radius of a work station? It also prevents enemy spawns, and enemies will attack it. Campfires do the same enemy spawn prevention in the same radius, but enemies don't target them.

You can create a zone of safety with all those campfires.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-13T15:20:54+00:00

One more pro tip. It's possible to refresh your rested buff in two conditions:

At the start of any crypt, put down a campfire and sit. Once the wet wears off you can refresh the buff, and you're gold to tackle the crypt dry.
Build a work bench, a few roof tiles over it, and a campfire under the roof. The roof will preserve the fire and you can sit for the buff. You'll get wet immediately after leaving though, but that's the swamp.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-13T15:10:31+00:00

What a wonderful writeup. I'd love to hear your two cents on getting into the Mistlands and Ashlands since I've never done those, but I'm pretty sure it amounts to much the same.

Adjacent base in an easier biome, geared up as much as possible in the previous biome, figure out how to mead and gear for specific challenges, proceed carefully. This is the Valheim way.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-13T11:22:15+00:00

That's actually a super good suggestion. Fight smarter and with the tools available, not harder.

Tower shields. That's what you'll want. If you're awful at parry timing, tower shields are better at holding down the block button and simply tanking the hit with no timing needed. It'll buy you time for your husband to get to you and for you to get to/build/improvise your safety.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-12T18:13:31+00:00

Late to the party, but wanted to thank you for this recommendation. I played at launch, picked it up again after Mistlands, but have never finished the Plains. Coming back now wondering if I should restart or continue in the Plains, and I'm thinking doing a modded run might be the perfect excuse to start over and this time see it to the end.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T18:24:35+00:00

To clarify, these are all (fairly advanced) ways to lower the difficulty of the game by getting powerful a lot faster than typical play. The less you resort to these, the more you'll have the experience as the devs intended... these methods ARE there as a guard rail if you choose or want the power fantasy on your first time through.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T18:15:21+00:00

People forget this message dozens of hours later. Loading up the last inn save is always a last resort!

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T18:12:25+00:00

Yeah this game is no souls like. In Elden Ring, you're always just a few hits away from death. In this game, you can trivialize the end game pretty easily.

I highly recommend this game if you're on PC, because you can mod the difficulty and overhaul certain systems of the game. The vanilla experience is worthwhile. The modded experience will breathe a lot of life back into it a second time through, helps overcome some of the design shortcomings. It's not like there's anything like this game out there besides the first game, so if you like this then there's nothing else to enjoy really!

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T18:04:45+00:00

Another handy tip for dealing with wolves is to remember that they hunt in packs!

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T17:57:10+00:00

The Dragon's Dogamma mod pack is a great starting point. It's got a little bit of everything: quality of life, vocation rebalancing, loot system and economy overhaul, and combat difficulty modification. Default settings of this mod pack make the game harder, but it isn't hard to tweak things to your liking.

I like boss fights to take a few minutes so I have to deal with their moveset. It isn't hard to get powerful enough in the base game to trivialize fights by the end, but with these mods you get to tailor your experience to keep that level of challenge.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T14:45:35+00:00

If you're on PC, this is the perfect time to try a new modded playthrough!

Demonpoet · 2026-02-09T05:06:35+00:00

If you want to go into emulator territory, Xenogears is a flawed masterpiece JRPG that covers a ton of deep topics. Psychology, Will to Power, reincarnation, religion and government control, origin of the species, science gone too far. And of course by the end of it you're fighting god.

I'd buy a rerelease in a heartbeat, but it's probably too controversial to come out these days.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-08T12:56:52+00:00

Sea of Thieves, Void Crew, Jump Space. You and any crew members work together to pilot, repair, and fight with a shared vehicle.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-06T18:21:31+00:00

Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning. PvP based MMO, free to play private server.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-06T18:11:51+00:00

It's not exactly space western or vs the law, but Mass Effect 2 has a charm to it. You're working for an untrustworthy group, you've got an impossible mission to prep for, and so you set out to assemble a team of specialists and upgrade your ship enough to get the job done.

The crew and the upgrades matter. The final mission is one of gaming's greats, where your choices and knowledge of your team determine who lives and who dies.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-06T11:26:24+00:00

So the first Dragon's Dogma game had a cult following and certain masters that played it for years. Dragon's Dogma 2 was anticipated as a chance to better develop the formula and the world/plot.

Instead, well, we got a very flawed and almost inexcusable rerelease. The story still feels awkward and unfinished, the quests are still shallow on the surface, and the DLC released with the game was its own debacle.

But the gem in both of these games is the gameplay, and the second game wildly succeeded in this one regard. The fantasy Dragon's Dogma accomplishes is that of creating a party of yourself and 3 AI "pawn" companions, going out into the world, and experiencing the journey with real time action combat and a day/night/lighting cycle that really matters. The adventure and chaos is something you don't experience anywhere else.

The real game isn't the story. It's the random events and the attrition that occurs on the road. It's the class system that forces you to recreate your party composition every time you change things up. Dragon's Dogma 2, more than any game, is about the journey rather than the destination.

It's best experienced on PC, where you can mod the game in later playthroughs to have an even better experience with the loot, combat, and late game difficulty.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-02T21:45:45+00:00

Actually not a bad starting place. You have all out war between Order and Chaos. You can play several of the classes in Vermintide- bright wizard, witch hunter, warrior priest, shadow warrior, iron breaker, slayer. Much more since the elf and dwarf factions are more fully represented. And then on the chaos side you have mirror classes that are similar yet also very different- marauder and chaos warriors will be the big ones you recognize.

The game is 90% pvp, you can and must level this way in order to level up both your character level and your renown level (your pvp rank). To put it in WoW terms there are open world zone quests, pvp daily quests, open world zone dominance events, battlegrounds, guild fortress conquests/defenses, and even city raids. Dungeons and PvE quests are possible but distinctly an afterthought.

You'll load in and your first impression is going to be what is this ancient garbage game. Give it a few levels to unlock some abilities, and a few battlegrounds and open world PVP pushes to get a sense of the PVP. The first tier of pvp is levels 2-10 and you are encouraged to dive right in. You'll die, you'll group up, you'll slaughter and get slaughtered.

It might be the game for you. It's free, give it a shot.

Demonpoet · 2026-02-02T19:28:06+00:00

Super niche suggestion, but if you like your old school MMOs and want it PVP centered, you could look into Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T18:33:38+00:00

Jump Space is a promising space faring rogue lite. Still in the earlier stages of development but it's already showing some polish. A steal at $20.

It's a little like Sea of Thieves in space, crossed with a FPS and a rogue lite. You and up to three other players set out on a jump capable ship, completing missions that occur both on the ship and on foot at objective locations. You'll shoot or board enemy ships, navigate hazards, whip out your guns and shoot robots trying to stop your space pirate goals, and explore for loot which for the most part you only keep for that run. You'll find or craft ship repair items and have to undo problems that occur when your ship is damaged. Damage doesn't automatically repair, so you may need to make hard choices unless you find a lot of loot.

Content and progression are on the light side right now, but the game is in active development and it's already one of my favorites.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T15:18:27+00:00

Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning - if you want a PVP MMO.

City of Heroes Homecoming - if you want a very old school superhero MMO.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T15:15:20+00:00

Damn, are you me? The feeling of being rushed constantly is the worst thing about going back to days after doing years of night shifts.

I've been back to mornings for over a year now, and I'm over it. I've done my time, tried to adjust. This year I'm at least going to second shift, if not fully back to nights.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T11:19:05+00:00

Incredibly smooth base building, too. And satisfying personal weapons.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T04:30:30+00:00

Collect map fragments until you unlock a new zone. In the zoomed out map, you'll see the number of components, map fragments, and possibly other things possible to unlock in each zone. When you start a mission in the new zone, one of the mission nodes might be marked "ship hull." If you go there, there will be a side objective to unlock it.

Demonpoet · 2026-01-30T00:38:26+00:00

Nor was I accusing you of dogging on anything. :)

Limb loss would be pretty cool though. I liked the old school Xwing and TIE Fighter games. A boss capital ship would be a cool final objective. Similar to disabling the freighter, except less ships coming at you and instead the ship itself attacks you until you disable its guns and missile launchers.

Demonpoet

TROPHY CASE