5 Fantastic Soulslike Games From 2026 to Pick Up If The Duskbloods Gets Delayed
After the preview of The Duskbloods through its playtest, fans are wondering when FromSoftware will release the latest Soulslike title in its catalog. However, the game’s unpolished state might cause it to be delayed beyond player expectations, making them wander elsewhere for an experience close to the Dark Souls series of action RPGs. Thankfully, 2026 has seen a great variety of Soulslike come out, including refined titles that experiment with the genre and push it in new directions.
Traditionally, a “Soulslike” is a game similar in nature to Dark Souls or Bloodborne, with deliberate character action with combat based in difficult enemies and precise timing on player actions. Action RPGs like those produced by developer FromSoftware tend to be the blueprint for this subgenre, but there are plenty of Soulslike the branch out with interesting and different ideas. From Soulslikes with an FPS perspective to ones that take elements from the Diablo series, there are many games worth picking up if you’re still waiting for The Duskbloods to release.
5. Mortal Shell 2
Mortal Shell 2 takes many traditional Soulslike concepts and iterates on them, all while retaining a similar style of action that players desire from the subgenre. This game has everything you want out of a Soulslike, from a large, interconnected world, to an aggressive combat system that challenges players to refine character builds and improve attack timings to deal with various threats. Exploration across a medieval gothic world strikes a balance between a familiar atmosphere and something entirely new.
However, one reason why Mortal Shell 2 feels like a good Soulslike is how it cuts out limitations games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring have. For example, players have no Stamina bar tied to their character’s actions, giving them more freedom to attack, cast magic, and use other skills. This increases the fluidity of combat itself, allowing for much faster attack combinations and action flow, pulling the game closer to an action game. Instead of Stamina, players build a resource called Resolve, which lets them perform special weapon skills and other abilities that add variety to the game’s combat.
The game also expands upon its predecessor, giving players more weapons, classes, and other features that mark an ambitious evolution. The “Shells” that players can choose to play as offer unique combat styles, altering health, resistances, and other gameplay systems to alter your journey. Although build variety may not be as open ended as a FromSoftware game, it is still far more detailed than most Soulslike titles.
4. No Rest For The Wicked
One of the most underrated Early Access games of this year has been No Rest for the Wicked, an action RPG that supports up to four players in cooperative adventures. This game follows a top-down perspective similar to the Diablo games, but follows the Soulslike formula by having battles centered around more careful actions based on reading and reacting to various enemies. The precision based combat rewards strategy, with every character having a distinct move set that changes how they approach battles your group encounters.
Players can enchant weapons, craft rare armor, and create builds to engage with the ARPG in ways personalized by them, granting the game multiple avenues of play. Alongside stylized visuals, players can create bases for themselves, customizing it through purchased and crafted items they obtain throughout their playtime. From creating meals to improve your character’s stats to recruiting vendor NPCs for your home town, No Rest for the Wicked has more opportunities than your standard Soulslike to really dig into the non-combat or exploration aspects of the game.
Yet, if players want to explore, there are many different Realm regions to investigate alongside your allies. Since harvesting crafting materials is so important in No Rest for the Wicked, exploration of unique biomes is just as crucial as beating a big boss. Random events in a location promotes seamless co-op even more, giving this Soulslike a dynamic quality where players can interact with a world that’s constantly changing.
3. Lords Of The Fallen 2
Those who want the closest thing to Dark Souls or The Duskbloods as possible should try Lords of the Fallen 2, a dark fantasy action RPG that mimics FromSoftware in a variety of ways. Monstrous bosses are challenging tests of player combat mastery, requiring good timing and understanding of enemy actions to beat. The brutal combat is defined by what paths players take, whether it’s a standard sword and shield or ranged magic in areas dominated by groups of enemies. The world is interconnected well too, with large and detailed areas with enough secrets to encourage exploration.
What sets Lords of the Fallen 2 apart is how it integrates a system tied to a key item — the Umbral Lamp. Through this lamp, your character can travel between worlds of light and dark, with aspects of the living and dead on both sides. Traveling through the world of the living will get you one map, while the dead Umbral world acts almost as an inverse to that same environment. For example, in the light world, a path may be blocked by some obstacle, but traveling into the Umbral world will clear the route so you can discover a secret weapon, item, or other piece of gear.
Traveling between the light and dark worlds almost makes every area of the game have two versions of itself, adding an innovative quality to this game’s atmosphere. Traveling in the Umbral world is more dangerous, as it is packed with more lethal foes, but it can yield some of the best rewards for doing so. Online co-op in a shared campaign mode can also expand the possibilities of Lords of the Fallen 2, allowing players to solve environmental puzzles together, while also taking on bosses in familiar Soulslike combat.
2. Beast Of Reincarnation
Set in a post-apocalyptic Japan, Beast of Reincarnation is a surprising Soulslike made by Game Freak, the developer usually behind the Pokemon games. This game blends what makes Souslike titles fun with aspects of Pokemon, integrating turn-based systems that the subgenre normally discards in favor of real-time action RPG combat. This game has Soulslike combat at most turns, with huge bosses that demand precise timing and reactions, but adds on levels of synergy that gives players another level of fighting to figure out.
The main character of this game, Emma, can send out her companion Koo to unleash various techniques in turn-based combat that takes place alongside her usual Soulslike flow. Players have the ability to upgrade Emma’s combat skills through build trees, gear, and other items that improve aspects of gameplay based on your preferences. The aggressive combat is almost faster through this blending of features, even if it’s presented through a more linear story. Creating loadouts for different play styles is the main draw of Beast of Reincarnation, so it has that replayability seen in top-tier Soulslike games too.
1. Valor Mortis
Coming out in October 2026, Valor Mortis is shaping up to be one of the most non-traditional Soulslikes out there, mainly due to its first-person perspective. Much like No Rest for the Wicked, Valor Mortis twists the subgenre’s expectations by putting players more front and center to careful RPG action than ever before. Although players might initially believe the combat is similar to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Avowed, or even Fallout, Valor Mortis is closer to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in its execution.
This game demands absolute focus from the player, as they must use a parry, dodges, and finishers to deal with imposing enemies from all sides. The first-person view can make enemies easy to lose, which could make it harder to implement Soulslike timing into your combat strategy. Thankfully, unique supernatural powers act like magic to help you out in this process, making gameplay a blend of melee mastery and battlefield manipulation. Defeating abominations opens up a large world with multiple secrets too, including clues in the environment that could give you a combat advantage.
Among new Soulslike games coming out in 2026, there are few that are as intriguing as this plague-ridden adventure in a Napoleonic era of France. The historical fiction of Valor Mortis also helps it relate more to games like Bloodborne and Lies of P, hopefully putting it on a pedestal alongside other great titles that utilize the Soulslike formula well.