Summary
As if losing hours worth of gathered resources isn’t scary enough, Soulslike games have a healthy and complementary relationship with horror games that is rarely seen elsewhere. The brutal difficulty of a Soulslike finds a natural home in trying to scare the player off.
Whether it’s maddened zombie puppets consuming the flesh of human beings or eldritch beings from outer space, Soulslikes are a treat for a scare and shouldn’t be overlooked.
WhileLies of Pis based upon the old Pinnochio stories, don’t let that give the wrong impression. Instead,Lies of Pfully leans into horror aesthetics throughout, making for a genuinely nerve-wracking experience in some key areas of the game that’s not offset by thevariety of powerful weapons P has at his disposal.
This is seen no better than the St. Frangelico Cathedral area of the game. As P makes his way into the mountains, he is confronted with a mysterious disease that has zombified many of the long-dead humans and turned them into horrifying creatures that stalk the gothic halls of the cathedral. It’s a very atmospheric part of the game and a memorable moment when Soulslikes showed just how scary they can be.
WhileDark Soulsmay be old-hat at this point, it’s important to remember just how revolutionary it was when it was released. Nothing like its world had ever been seen before, which meant that plumbing into its unknown depths could make for a genuinely frightening experience as the player faces off againstits gallery of fearsome bosses.
There’s no better example of this than the sewer system deep below the Undead Burg. Here, the player leaves the realm of knights and gargoyles and is confronted with strange basilisk monsters that instantly half the player’s max HP and have a truly sickening creature design, lurking behind dark corners and jumping out when least suspected. There are more scary surprises throughout the game, and it’s a worthwhile entry as a foundational scary Soulslike.
While some Soulslikes have scary areas, Soulslikes likeHellpointtry to make the whole game scary by crafting an omnipresent atmosphere of dread and gloom as the player ventures through the space station of Irid Novo after the Merge (being sure not to makesome of the key mistakes many beginners do).
What results is a game clearly inspired by the likes ofDead SpaceandAlien: Isolation, but reinterpreted through the lens of the Soulslike. That means players are skulking through metallic hallways covered in fleshy pustules, desperately clinging onto their resources as the next horrifying monstrosity lumbers into view, making it easily one of the scariest Soulslikes to release.
While sci-fi horror is all the rage, The Game Kitchen took a different approach when considering their own Soulslike game and decided to lean hard into religion-based horror, particularly imagery associated with the Catholic faith. While the in-game religion is markedly different, the associations to real-world religious symbology make for a wholly unique and genuinely unnerving game.
Inevitably, players inBlasphemousare going to come across their fair share of thorn-crowned monsters, but they’ll similarly face giant babies, horrifying angels, and maybe even the Gods themselves. It’s a great scary Soulslike,full to the brim with secrets, that’s well worth picking up.
As if it could be anything else. FromSoftware were not only trendsetters in defining the Soulslike genre, but they were also the first to try and overtly take the subgenre into the world of horror in their magnum opusBloodborne.The game doesn’t just settle for one kind of horror, going from gothic horror to supernatural horror, all the way to cosmic horror at the center of the game’s narrative.
That meansBloodborneis full to bursting with areas dripping with atmosphere and dread with horrific monstrosities anda litany of boss monstersready and waiting to tear the player’s guts out. However, if they should hold their nerve, they’ll have experienced one of the best, and one of the scariest, Soulslikes on the market.
