Ask for the shape of the challenge.

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

Hazard 5 with four dwarves is a coordination problem. Solo with Bosco is a slower, different game that the hazard tiers do not really account for.

Two games glued together, and the management half is where a run is actually lost — a starving flock undoes a perfectly good dungeon.

Wider than Hades and more demanding with it: two escape routes, a resource economy on the surface, and bosses that punish the sprint-attack habit the first game rewarded.

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.

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.

Reflex mode quietly saves every blown infiltration. Turn it off and the enemy adapts to whatever you did last mission, which is where the game gets interesting.

Creature collection with a base-automation layer underneath it. The difficulty sliders are unusually honest about the fact that the grind is the game.

Runs are fast and deaths are total. Boss cells stack modifiers until a loadout that felt comfortable dies to two hits, and there is no difficulty setting hiding under them.

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