Is Soulframe a Soulslike Game?

by JFFK · August 19, 2025

Unsurprisingly, a lot of new players and commentators go into Soulframe expecting a Soulslike game. Intentionally or not, the combination of its enigmatic dark fantasy setting and its very name encourages this assumption.

But how “Soulslike” is Soulframe, really? In this article, we’ll look at some of the most common traits associated with Soulslike games and see how many of them apply to Soulframe.

Examining Soulframe – Is It a Soulslike?

Below are four of the most important traits typically associated with Soulslike titles such as Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne and others. We will examine these and compare them to Soulframe, to see if it is fair to refer to this game as a Soulslike.

Difficulty

Probably the most notorious aspect of Soulslike games is their high difficulty, combined with the possibility of item or progression loss if the player dies twice in a row without recovering their gear. This combination commonly creates a tough adventure that fights back hard against the player at nearly every step of the way. Players who try to rush often find that this only causes the game to push back against them even harder, unless they are extremely skilled.

This does not describe Soulframe at all. While not the easiest game I have ever played, Soulframe’s combat is not especially challenging for the most part. There is no penalty for dying, and involuntary loss of items doesn’t happen.

The only example of progress loss from dying in Soulframe happens in the Crypt of the Circade. Dying here will teleport the player back to the surface, resetting the dungeon and erasing any progress you made (but you keep items you looted before dying). While inconvenient, this is not a very big problem because the Crypt is very short. Since this doesn’t occur in any other scenarios, it is nowhere near enough justification for calling this game “Soulslike”.

But now let’s examine some other aspects of the game.

Combat

Speaking of the combat, this is the second most notable aspect of Soulslike games. This closely ties in with the difficulty – the unique combat of Soulslike games already makes these games challenging, without considering the other factors that typically make things even tougher.

Every enemy in Soulslike titles, from the creaking old animated skeleton to the mightiest of bosses, has its set of attack patterns, strengths and vulnerabilities. These must be keenly observed and memorised by a player who wants to get good at the game, often through a brutal process of trial and error. Many Soulslike games also suppress your ability to cancel your attacks, for example, by dodging out of an unfinished attack. This makes your mistakes much more costly.

With its combat style, Soulframe shares a couple of minor similarities with Soulslike games, but not enough to earn the categorisation in my opinion. Soulframe suppresses animation cancelling on some attacks, but not across the board (and it’s currently possible to cancel almost everything by quickly tapping Spirit Vision and then dodging). Enemies have their attack patterns and sequences, but they aren’t especially punishing, and you can typically facetank several heavy hits, even from bosses. Memorising enemy attack patterns still makes you a better player in Soulframe, but it is not required because of your plentiful access to tools like healing, parrying and dodging, none of which are limited by a stamina or mana system.

Gameplay Style

One aspect of Soulframe that is similar to Soulslike games is the player’s ability to permanently improve their character by earning and spending XP. However, this is common in the vast majority of RPG-style games, not just Soulslikes.

As mentioned earlier, Soulslike games usually have a mechanic that can cause XP loss, item loss or a similar progression roadblock if you die and fail to reach your last death location without dying again in the process. But there is no such mechanic to be found in Soulframe, so this comparison is also faulty at best.

Saving progress and healing at a bonfire, and managing your character’s Stamina and/or Mana to avoid exhaustion are yet more very common Soulslike mechanics that are not present in Soulframe.

Story, Themes and Narrative Style

Soulframe’s setting has clear elements of dark fantasy – the natural world is being corrupted before your very eyes by the influence of mysterious enemies from the sky.

Its lack of a concrete story in favour of environmental storytelling featuring dispersed narrative fragments and clues about the backstory does resemble many Soulslike games.

It’s not yet clear if this is the intended method of storytelling or a temporary state of affairs until more story content has been created and added to the game. But this is pretty similar to Soulslike storytelling, and while Soulframe isn’t quite as dark a fantasy as the likes of Elden Ring and Dark Souls, for example, its corrupted, dying world does fit at least partially into this categorisation.

In Conclusion

For the time being, Soulframe’s setting and narrative style are the only aspects of the game that bear a fairly strong resemblance to Soulslike games.

Soulframe is referred to as a Soulslike quite frequently by players and commentators alike, but it is difficult to describe this categorisation as anything other than incorrect. Having a similar style of storytelling to Soulslike games is not enough to make Soulframe a Soulslike – this genre of games does not have a monopoly on that variety of storytelling – in fact, it is very common, not just in video games but across all kinds of digital media.

Soulframe is not a Soulslike game. This doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy Soulframe if Soulslikes are your favourite type of game, but you shouldn’t go in with that expectation, because very few of the most defining aspects of Soulslikes are present in Soulframe.