This is an opinion piece from Rock Paper Shotgun arguing that the "Soulslike" genre has grown stagnant in the years since FromSoftware's Elden Ring, with many imitators now feeling formulaic rather than fresh. The writer, a longtime fan of the genre since Dark Souls, contends that only FromSoftware itself seems capable of pushing the format into genuinely new territory, as other studios' efforts increasingly recycle familiar ideas rather than innovate.

The piece defines a Soulslike not as a direct clone but as an interpretation of Dark Souls' "DNA" — likening it to perfume houses producing "dupes" of a popular scent, each tweaking different notes. It identifies core hallmarks as tense risk-reward mechanics (losing collected souls on death, with one chance to reclaim them), sparse and variable checkpoints, and intricately designed, secret-laden maps. Using Team Ninja's Nioh as an example, the article shows how early imitators substituted FromSoftware's traits (open exploration, atmospheric storytelling) with their own strengths (mission structures, loot systems, faster combat), but suggests that the wider genre has since settled into repetitive patterns.