Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a third person soulslike action roleplaying game developed by Leenzee. The game's Chinese name is 明末：渊虚之羽 (Míngmò: Yuānxū Zhī Yǔ) which Google translates to something along the lines of "Late Ming Era: Feathers of the Abyss". The first part certainly wouldn't have sounded good in English. 'Wuchang' comes from the (silent) protagonist's name: Bai Wuchang.

Steelrising

Almost exactly a year before Lies of P, there was Steelrising. In addition to both games being third person soulslike action RPGs, their settings are coincidentally very similar as well. Steelrising takes place in alternate Paris during the French Revolution, and like in Lies of P later, automats roam the streets, killing everyone.

Dolmen

I'm not willing to play every single, somewhat interesting-looking, third person soulslike action roleplaying game ever made -- not quite. There is a bar of quality and production value the games has to pass. But... the bar is pretty low: Dolmen passed it. It was developed by a small Brazilian team called Massive Work Studio -- who have disbanded now, I believe.

Thymesia

Thymesia is one of the now-many third person soulslike action RPGs. It's from a small Taiwanese developer OverBorder Studio and turned out to have even lower production values than I had expected -- the game features no voiced dialogue in any language. However, even if modest in its scope, Thymesia was reasonably entertaining, its gameplay feel solid enough for a good time.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn released in July without making much of a splash. In my opinion, Flintlock is at least an improvement from A44's previous game, Ashen, already for the fact that it has a lot more variation in combat actions. There are some questionable design decisions and I suppose overall it's not that special of a game. However, I would say it's enjoyable enough on Game Pass if you're hungering for a straightforward soulslike action roleplaying game.

Lords of the Fallen (2023)

The 2023 reboot of Lords of the Fallen dropped its definite article eventually and instead one has to use the release year to distinguish the titles -- which might actually be clearer. The developer studio CI Games had founded to make the game also ended up being called Hexworks instead of the initially announced 'Defiant Games' for whatever reason.

Hellpoint

I was certain Hellpoint was from a Russian studio. I guess its aesthetic brought to mind eurojank from Eastern Europe. To my surprise, Cradle Games, the developer of this third person soulslike action roleplaying game, is instead based in Québec, Canada. GOG gave away the game for free at some point but I also bought its Blue Sun DLC because I like my games whole.

Ashen

Annapurna Interactive has published quite a few games that have this certain style of simplistic 3D visuals with low polygon count/sparse details. Such looks communicate low stress gameplay -- at least to me -- but that can be deceiving. Ashen, a 2018 soulslike action roleplaying game by A44, for one, can be a truly frustrating experience.

Lies of P

The reasons for my rule of not touching games developed by Japanese studios are many. (I should start writing them down; I feel like I've started forgetting them.) And that rule still holds. South Korea is culturally and geographically close to Japan -- at least when viewed from here -- but I haven't needed to think if they are close enough for Korean games to be included in the prohibition of mine. For the longest time, South Korean studios seemed to release only pay-to-win MMORPGs in the West and those are easy for to me to ignore. But now there's Lies of P, a third person soulslike action roleplaying game released in September last year. It was on Game Pass day-one but I decided to wait for bug fixes and balance adjustments.

Mortal Shell

Of the games of its genre I have played so far, Mortal Shell is the first one trying to have the exact same atmosphere as the genre defining FromSoftware titles (at least for someone who has only watched the latter being played). It has a similar cryptic setting and lore -- often manifesting as detached quotes -- and the visuals have the same washed-out colors. However, it's probably safe to say that mechanically and scope-wise Mortal Shell is far simpler. I don't think Cold Symmetry is a big studio and thus they didn't have the resources to exactly recreate their favorite game.

Lords of the Fallen

I was reminded of Lords of the Fallen's existence once again when it was included in a Polish Games sale on GOG few months back. I thought that was a bit odd: isn't Deck13 Interactive German? Was the game published by a Polish company or something? Yes, as it turned out. The publisher CI Games were also a co-developer of this Dark Souls style third person action roleplaying game and have also founded a new subsidiary Defiant Studios for its sequel.

The Surge 2

As far as video game sequels go, The Surge 2 is a fairly good one. It has the familiar gameplay of the previous title but also introduces new features and improvements. I even liked the game enough to immediately replay it. New game plus mostly offered just bigger numbers though: I had been so thorough on my first playthrough that an alternative final boss armor set was pretty much the only thing I was missing.

The Surge

Here's another of them methodical third person action roleplaying games. I actually played The Surge a bit last fall already during my second month of Game Pass but then ragequit and uninstalled after dying and dropping a considerable amount of scrap which is the game's main resource. I had just spawned the first boss who appears between you and the level's medbay which is your respawn point. I thought there was no way to get to the scrap in time with how I would need to beat the boss first. I now know it would've in fact been quite simple to go around, although I don't remember if I had unlocked a particular shortcut then.

Darksiders III

Vigil Games' founder David Adams moved with most of the studio's people to hastily established Crytek USA when THQ went bankrupt in 2012. Adam quit soon after however, and founded Gunfire Games with many of Crytek USA's leads as staff. THQ's Darksiders IP was bought by Nordic Games -- now THQ Nordic -- who hired Gunfire to develop Deathinitive Edition of the second game and then finally Darksiders III. Thus the franchise continues to live on with the people who created it. THQ Nordic also acquired Gunfire Games in last year's August, pretty much ensuring the fourth game will come from the same people as well.