You know the feeling. The final boss finally crumbled after your fourteenth attempt, the credits rolled, and now you are sitting at the main menu at 2 a.m. not knowing what to do with your hands. Nioh 3 just ended and the world already feels slightly duller for it. That particular itch — fast, punishing, loot-soaked, mechanically dense — does not just go away.
The problem with games like Nioh 3 recommendations is that most lists will point you straight at Elden Ring or Dark Souls III as if you have not already sunk three hundred hours into FromSoftware's back catalog. This list assumes you have. What follows are games that scratch the specific itch Nioh 3 creates: breakneck combat with real mechanical depth, loot systems that genuinely change how you play, and a difficulty curve that punishes hesitation. Eight entries. No filler. Ordered for momentum, not alphabetical comfort.
01
Action RPG / Team Ninja
If you came to the series with Nioh 3, do not skip this one. Nioh 2 remains one of the densest, most mechanically rewarding action-RPGs ever made — the soul core system lets you absorb yokai abilities from fallen enemies and build combinations that feel genuinely yours across hundreds of hours. The level design is more linear, so you will feel the absence of Nioh 3's open fields, but the individual encounter design is arguably tighter for it: every room is a puzzle, every boss is a wall that eventually becomes a doorway. The loot system runs so deep that you can lose a full evening in the smithing menu without touching the game world. This is Team Ninja's combat philosophy in its most focused form, and it still stands as one of the best action-RPGs ever made.
The Hook: For players who want Nioh 3's combat taken to its most elaborate, build-obsessive conclusion — this is the series at its loot-ceiling peak.
02
Action RPG / FromSoftware
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
PC · PS4 · PS5 · Xbox
The Precision Test
Where Nioh 3 hands you a thousand tools to adapt to any situation, Sekiro strips everything away and asks one simple question: can you read the attack? There is no build diversity, no loot to mitigate bad play, no summoning another player to absorb hits. The entire game is a conversation between your sword and the enemy's sword, written in the language of perfectly timed deflections. The posture-breaking system means offense and defense are the same gesture, producing a flow state no other game in the genre quite replicates. Shorter and more focused than anything Team Ninja makes, but what it achieves within that focus is extraordinary. This is the game for Nioh 3 players who leaned hardest into the Ninja style's aggressive momentum and wanted even less room to breathe.
The Hook: For players who loved landing Nioh 3's Deflect and want an entire game built around that single, perfect moment of reading an attack correctly.
03
Action RPG / Team Ninja
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
PC · PS4 · PS5 · Xbox
Team Ninja Goes to China
Team Ninja's own experiment in making the formula more approachable, set in China's Three Kingdoms period and built around a morale system that makes exploration directly rewarding. The spirit mechanic forces you forward — dealing damage fills your gauge, taking hits drains it — in a way that feels alien at first and completely instinctive after an hour. It never quite reaches the combat ceiling of Nioh 3, and the zone structure can feel repetitive in the middle chapters, but individual boss encounters are some of Team Ninja's best pure fight designs. Yan Liang and Lu Bu both deserve trophies for psychological damage inflicted. A natural next stop if you want the same action-RPG sensibility that has defined 2025 and 2026's best games applied to a fresh historical canvas.
The Hook: For players who want Team Ninja's combat sensibility in a new setting, and are curious what the studio does when it leans into accessibility without going soft.
04
Soulslike / Gothic Action-RPG
Lies of P
PC · PS4 · PS5 · Xbox
Best Non-FromSoftware Soulslike
The most impressive non-FromSoftware Soulslike in recent memory, built around a fable you already know but have never seen like this. Lies of P takes the Pinocchio story into a crumbling Belle Époque city overrun by mechanical puppets and asks you to master a weapon assembly system that lets you graft any blade onto any handle, creating tools the game never specifically designed but fully supports. The guard mechanic — blocking at the precise moment regains health lost from chip damage — rewards staying in the fight over rolling away. The atmosphere is astonishing and the boss designs are creative without sacrificing mechanical coherence. This is the game for players who want Nioh 3's craftsmanship applied to a world with genuine narrative ambition and a visual identity that belongs entirely to itself.
The Hook: For players who want deep combat craft wrapped inside a gothic story that actually lands, and who want to build weapons that feel genuinely theirs.
What the first half of this list reveals is that the best games like Nioh 3 all share a specific conviction: they trust you to get worse before you get better. None of them apologize for their difficulty or offer easy exits. The surge in high-craft Soulslikes is not just a trend feeding off FromSoftware's popularity — it is a genuine signal that players want to feel the friction, want to learn, want the moment when a boss that destroyed them fifteen times suddenly looks slower. The second half goes somewhere else entirely.
05
Soulslike / 2025 Hidden Gem
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
PC · PS5
Most Underrated on This List
One of 2025's most overlooked releases, Wuchang drops you into a plague-ravaged Ming Dynasty China and does not hold your hand for a single second. Combat is built around a feather accumulation mechanic — taking hits fills a madness meter, and pushing it far enough unlocks devastating abilities at the cost of losing control if you overshoot. Every zone is interconnected and dense with shortcuts and hidden encounters that suggest a world that existed before you arrived. The visual design is strikingly lavish for an independent production. If Wuchang had released in a quieter year it would have been a genre conversation piece; instead it is a hidden gem waiting for the Nioh 3 community to find it. A perfect companion to our look at games that make exploration feel genuinely dangerous.
The Hook: For players who liked Nioh 3's sense that every room might contain something worth finding, and want that curiosity rewarded inside a tighter, more focused world.
06
Soulslike Shooter / Co-op
Remnant 2
PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S
Odd One Out, Worth It
The odd one out on this list, and deliberately so. Remnant 2 is a third-person shooter with Soulslike bones — checkpoints that respawn enemies, punishing boss encounters, a loot system deep enough to lose weeks in — but it wraps all of that in procedurally generated dungeons that ensure no two playthroughs are identical. The archetype system, where you equip two character classes simultaneously and combine their passive abilities, creates build diversity that rivals anything in the genre. Playing co-op with two friends transforms it from a tense solo crawl into something chaotic and joyful. If you spent most of Nioh 3 playing online with Benevolent Graves and summoning help for the hardest bosses, Remnant 2 is exactly where that instinct leads.
The Hook: For players who want the Soulslike loop in a build that can be theorycrafted endlessly, with co-op that makes the game better rather than trivializing it.
07
Action RPG / Chinese Mythology
Black Myth: Wukong
PC · PS5
The Visual Standout
Technically more of an action-RPG than a strict Soulslike, but the boss design is so precise and so demanding that the distinction stops mattering about two hours in. You play as the Destined One tracking Sun Wukong through Chinese mythology, and the enemy design pulls from a folkloric tradition rich enough to produce dozens of memorable encounters without repetition. The staff combat has transformations, spells, and timing windows that reward mastery as fully as anything in the genre. The death penalty is lighter than Nioh 3 — you do not lose currency on death — which makes it a sensible recommendation for players who found Nioh 3's early chapters economically punishing and want the satisfaction without the financial anxiety. Among the best single-player action experiences of the last two years by any measure.
The Hook: For players who want demanding boss encounters wrapped in the most visually stunning action-RPG world since Elden Ring, with a mythology as deep as any FromSoftware lore.
08
Soulslike / Dual-World Mechanic
Lords of the Fallen (2023)
PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S
Cult Recommendation
The 2023 reboot that arrived to mixed reviews and has since become a cult recommendation among Soulslike veterans, largely because its dual-world mechanic — flipping between the living Axiom and the dead Umbral realm at will — is one of the most original structural ideas the genre has produced. Umbral is a decaying mirror of the living world where enemies are more dangerous and the atmosphere genuinely oppressive; spending too long there summons a pursuing specter that accelerates until it catches you. The soulscore system, where enemies drop more currency the longer you go without banking it, creates a tension that does not exist in most Soulslike games. Rough in places and some bosses overstay their welcome, but the core loop is compelling enough that finishing it leaves you wanting more. Best suited for Nioh 3 players who loved the open-field exploration and want to experience a world that rewards patient, thorough exploration.
The Hook: For players who want a genuinely novel world mechanic — the ability to step into the realm of the dead at any moment — wrapped around a punishing loot-driven loop.
The Soulslike genre is in its most interesting moment not because of how many games fill the space, but because of how differently each one defines what that space actually is. Nioh 3 argues it is about mastery through speed and system layering. Sekiro argues it is about the perfection of a single gesture. Lies of P argues it is about atmosphere and grief. What you play next probably says something about which of those arguments convinced you most — and that, honestly, is a pretty good sign the genre has grown up into something worth arguing about.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start if Nioh 3 was my first Soulslike?
Nioh 3 is among the more newcomer-friendly entries in the genre thanks to its open-field structure — if you hit a wall, you can explore elsewhere and come back stronger. If you want to go deeper, Black Myth: Wukong is the smoothest next step because its death penalty is lighter while boss encounters still demand genuine skill. From there, Lies of P adds more mechanical complexity without overwhelming players still building genre vocabulary.
Is Nioh 2 worth playing after Nioh 3, or does the sequel make it obsolete?
They coexist very well and serve different cravings. Nioh 3 is the bigger, more open experience with the Ninja style added to the formula, but Nioh 2 has tighter encounter design and a soul core system that many players consider the series peak for loot complexity. If you love building characters in detailed menus and want boss encounters designed in narrower corridors with no room for error, Nioh 2 is absolutely worth your time even after finishing the third game.
How does Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty compare to the Nioh games in difficulty?
Wo Long is generally more accessible than either Nioh entry because its morale system gives you more ways to bridge the gap between your skill and the boss in front of you. The parry window is also slightly more forgiving than Nioh 3's Deflect, though it still requires a real commitment to timing. The difficulty spikes sharply in later chapters, and boss encounters like Lu Bu rival anything in the Nioh series for demanding play.
What makes Lies of P different from other Soulslikes?
The weapon assembly system sets it apart immediately — you can graft any blade onto any handle, creating hybrid weapons the combat system fully supports even if the developers never designed them that way. The guard mechanic, where blocking at the precise moment regains health lost from chip damage, rewards staying aggressive over rolling away from everything. Tonally, its commitment to a Belle Époque horror atmosphere gives it a visual identity that belongs entirely to itself rather than feeling like Dark Souls in a new coat of paint.
Can Remnant 2 be played solo, or is it mainly built for co-op?
Remnant 2 is fully designed for solo play and holds up well without partners — enemy health scales up when you add co-op players, so going alone is not a disadvantage. Solo play is tenser and rewards careful archetype combinations that cover multiple roles. Co-op with two friends transforms it into something looser and more chaotic, which is a genuinely different kind of fun. The procedural generation means your world layout will differ from everyone else's, giving it real replay value across both modes.
Which of these made you slam the controller down in the best possible way — and what Soulslike are we criminally leaving off this list?
Post a Comment