The soulslike on-ramp

Gentlest to hardest, from a game that teaches you to lose to one that refuses every alternative to getting good at it.

Climbs overall difficulty4.0 → 7.3 for you7 rungstypical step +0.6

Start at the bottom: Hades. Where you get on is the rung after the deepest one you have marked beaten.

1 rung sits easier for you than the one before it. The order is authored for an average player and your aptitudes disagree with it here. It is left as written rather than re-sorted: the curator’s claim is about what each game prepares you for, which is not the same claim as “this one scores lower”.

These numbers are for an average player. Calibrate and the whole path re-reads itself against you.

1
Hades
2020 · Supergiant Games · ~25h
4.0Overall
Death as a loop rather than a setback. You keep something from every failed run, so losing forty times stops feeling like forty failures — the one habit every rung above assumes you already have.
Start here
2
Hollow Knight
2017 · Team Cherry · ~30h
5.9Overall
The walk back. Dying costs you distance and your currency until you return to the spot, which is the whole soulslike bargain introduced without a stamina bar attached.
+1.9 jump
3
Elden Ring
2022 · FromSoftware · ~60h
6.5Overall
The one that lets you leave. When a wall is too high you can ride away, come back stronger, and try again — the escape hatch none of the rungs above give you.
+0.6 step
4
Dark Souls
2011 · FromSoftware · ~45h
6.5Overall
The same fights with the door shut. Level design replaces the open world as the thing that lets you make progress, and route knowledge starts to matter more than levels.
+0.0 step
5
Bloodborne
2015 · FromSoftware · ~40h
6.6Overall
Aggression as defence. Healing by hitting back inverts the shield-first instinct the two rungs below just trained into you, which is why it lands harder than its numbers suggest.
+0.1 step
6
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
2019 · FromSoftware · ~35h
7.3Overall
No build to fall back on. Deflect timing is the only stat that exists and it cannot be levelled past — this is the rung that catches people who got through the others by over-preparing.
+0.7 step
7
Nioh 2
2020 · Team Ninja · ~60h
7.3Overall
Everything above plus systems: stance switching, gear churn, and a grind the others never asked for. Last because it is the only one that is long as well as hard.
−0.0 stepEasier for you than the rung below