It is a well-known trope that whenever a new action game is revealed that gets people excited, there is a tendency to also assume it’s a Soulslike game. It happened with both Stellar Blade and even Armored Core 6 earlier this year. The latest victim is Black Myth: Wukong. Search for the game online and you’ll find dozens of articles, Reddit threads, and game forum topics asking whether or not Black Myth: Wukong is a Soulslike, as well as follow-ups clarifying that, actually, no, Black Myth: Wukong isn’t a Soulslike game after all.
I want to go on record and say once and for all that Black Myth: Wukong is not a Soulslike. However, it is a great character action game that draws inspiration from Dark Souls, alongside many other great action games including God of War and Bayonetta.
What Makes a Soulslike?
What people mean by Soulslike can vary slightly (or sometimes significantly), but oftentimes they mean games with a risk-reward element, like losing Souls, XP, or resources upon death, difficult bosses, melee-focused combat, and limited healing. Dark Souls and Elden Ring creator Hidetaka Miyazaki actually defined the genre for IGN in an interview, calling them “Those dark fantasy third-person action games with a higher focus on melee combat and sense of accomplishment.”
Personally, I think the hallmarks of a true Soulslike games are defined by difficult boss fights, a leveling system dependent on defeating enemies — hence their need to respawn after each checkpoint — as well as an element of exploration. FromSoftware games all have complex map layouts, with shortcuts and routes that can double-back and connect with each other, like one big maze.
Black Myth: Wukong certainly ticks some of those Soulslike boxes – its boss fights are certainly challenging, it has a similar dodgeroll and melee attack combat style, plus the use of stamina bars and finite health items – but I’d say it actually has much more in common with a boss rush game, like No More Heroes. The level design is almost completely different to any world FromSoftware has crafted – maps in Dark Souls are an intricate puzzle box, while Black Myth: Wukong is fairly linear, taking our Destined hero from boss to boss in near enough a straight line.
The reason for this non-Soulsian format is actually inspired by the original novel, “Journey to the West,” on which the game is based, where Sun Wukong must overcome 81 trials in his quest to obtain sacred Buddhist scriptures. It’s a plot device IGN China Editor-in-Chief Charles Young describes as being almost similar to overcoming 81 video game levels.
As mentioned in our review, our brief, early times with Black Myth: Wukong during preview events led us to believe this was going to be a Soulslike game initially “given the checkpoint system, the stamina bar that governs your actions in combat, and the dodge-heavy fighting style.” But once we got our hands on the full game it quickly became apparent that Black Myth: Wukong is doing its own thing.
And that is the case for many games. The Souls series has been so hugely influential over the last decade or so that ‘Soulslike’ is a moniker that’s been attached to so many action adventures when the reality is it’s merely just a subgenre of action-adventure.
FromSoftware’s Permanent Influence
Much of what FromSoftware has done in its current era has made its way into other games, of course, but that doesn’t automatically make them Soulslikes. I’m talking about things like the limited-use health item, stamina bar, and respawn points that resets all enemies. A mixture of any of these elements now appear in numerous non-Soulslike games like Black Myth: Wukong, Stellar Blade, and FromSoftware’s own Sekiro (which isn’t a Soulslike game and I will fight you over this.)
Previously, it might have been fair to say that the stamina bar and limited-use health items – i.e. the Estus Flask in Dark Souls – were integral to a Dark Souls game because of how they affect the overall difficulty. But since their proliferation, more and more games have included these ideas into their own action games. Stellar Blade, which features a combat system similar to Black Myth: Wukong and also borrows the Soulslike checkpoint system, ditches the stamina bar entirely. Conversely, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a stamina bar (and a few surprisingly beefy bosses!), but nobody would ever mistake that as a Soulslike game at all.
It has become abundantly clear that gameplay mechanics that were once previously the sole domain of Soulslike games are now in games that don’t fit in that subgenre. And we have to accept that we live in a new, post-Souls reality for the action genre where, just because a game features some FromSoftware-style flourishes, doesn’t mean it’s aSoulslike game at all.
This is an important distinction because, believe it or not, there are many action game fans who don’t necessarily enjoy the Soulslike style. And that’s okay, but it’d be a shame for those fans to miss out on games like Black Myth: Wukong or even Sekiro (again, not a Soulslike!) because of misclassifying games under a very specific subgenre.
Instead, we should take the opportunity to look at games like Black Myth: Wukong and appreciate just how much FromSoftware has changed the action game genre as a whole and , in my opinion, for the better. All while accepting the industry’s move into a new reality where not all great action games featuring challenging boss fights are automatically assumed to be Soulslike. This in turn means we can also further appreciate games like Black Myth: Wukong, which as our review points out, shines thanks to all of the different mechanics and creative elements that aren’t borrowed from the Soulslike genre.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.