Furry hack-and-slash Metroidvania with some RPG elements. But the real story here is that aside from VA, soundtrack, and parts of the story, Dust was designed and programmed entirely by one person.

A philosophical rumination under the guise of an experimental videogame.

Hauntingly beautiful, tight controls and an atmospheric world. Hyper Light Drifter is a great example of how to do top-down adventure standing on the shoulders of giants like Zelda and Dark Souls.

Nioh transcends its soulslike roots by adding successful new ideas like stances in combat and Guardian Spirits. Enemies and environments become repetitive after a while, but worth the price of entry.

OXENFREE won’t be for everyone, but genuinely does a great job in it’s portrayal of characters that has traditionally been fraught with cringe. Great music, storytelling and engaging decision making.

A great 2D side-scrolling soulslike. At times the difficulty feels a little artificial, but overall a solid experience with well crafted mechanics and world.

A multiplayer fighting-game often confused with a soulslike. While you can feel its influence, this is at heart a masterfully crafted fighting-game with a great aesthetic and tonnes of depth.

Utterly brilliant. Takes everything it learned in its predecessor and does it much better. The concepts driving this game are so ingenious and well executed, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

To be clear, this is a very good game. I couldn’t get into it, however. The design is clever and ‘endings’ very cool. But the setting, characters, movement & navigation frustrated me to a distracting degree.

As with a lot of soulslikes; The Surge has a few respectable and cool ideas for ideation on the genre, but ultimately falls flat - repetitive enemies & environments, and a not-very-engaging story.