9 Best Dark Souls Games That AREN'T Dark Souls - Commenter's Edition

7. Code Vein

One of the surest games to qualify as a Soulslike is certainly Bandai Namco’s 2019 action RPG Code Vein. The game isn’t quite as refined as its inspiration but if you’re looking for something that steps outside of what you would expect FromSoftware to serve up with all the same gameplay hooks and intriguing gothic world, this one more than delivers.

With a deep though admittedly divisively wild narrative set in a sprawling game world, the game earned plenty of fans for its unique approach to combat and uncommon addition of an optional AI companion who 60% of the time, does what you want every time. I’m just playing, they’re almost always a big help.

Code Vein even has elements that are directly comparable to Souls games, like a fight against two bosses that is similar to the battle with Orstein and Smough and an Anor Londo-esque location, The Cathedral of Sacred Blood.

Code Vein doesn’t only attain its cult status by taking inspiration from the Soulsborne format and iterating on it in interesting new ways, even if not all of those ways are an improvement, it also absolutely emulates the iconic Souls difficulty level. One of the places this is best experienced is in the brutal Depths dungeons which get harder as they go, capping out at the DLC dungeon Fiery Oblivion and one of its super challenging bosses, Hellfire Night, who comes at you with quick and powerful attacks not to mention 125,000 HP.

From offering up an enticing world and rich lore to its fleshed out characters and shameless love for its often dramatic anime visuals, you can do much worse than Bandai’s response to FromSoft.