Ask for the shape of the challenge.

The expansion where the series stops being polite: Master Rank monsters hit for most of your health bar and expect the matchup knowledge the base game let you skip.

Wirebugs give every weapon a get-out-of-jail move, which makes this the entry that will actually teach you the series rather than survive you learning it.

Sixty hours of systems the game never explains, hiding behind a weapon whose fourth input you have not found yet.

Enormous and completely indifferent — most of its walls are optional, and it will never tell you which ones.

Aim matters less than knowing what the other team can do to you, and the roster is large enough that this takes a very long time to learn.

Souls difficulty plus a fighting game’s input list plus a loot game’s spreadsheet, and none of the three is optional.

Souls stamina and checkpoints with a gun in your hands, so the dodge is still the answer but the aim decides whether the dodge was needed.

Its difficulty is crowd control, not duels: the game throws groups and ranged attackers at you constantly, and the second world doubles the population.

The movement is the skill ceiling and nothing in the game mentions it — the players beating you are using techniques that were never taught, only tolerated.

The gentlest soulslike on the shelf, largely because the AI companion it gives you will happily solo a boss you cannot beat.