Why Tough Games Hook Us: Lessons from Soulslikes

Hard games used to be a niche obsession. Today, the language of “Soulslike” difficulty is everywhere, from action RPGs to open-world blockbusters. Developers working on massive projects like the next Witcher game or ongoing Cyberpunk 2077 updates openly reference Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls when they talk about challenge, player motivation, and playtesting. That raises a bigger question: what makes tough games so compelling, and where is the line between satisfying difficulty and pure frustration?

This article takes inspiration from those discussions to dig into how studios think about challenge, how playtesting shapes difficulty, and what modern developers can learn from FromSoftware’s design philosophy without simply copying it it.

From Niche to North Star: How Soulslikes Influenced AAA Design

When Demon’s Souls and later Dark Souls first arrived, their intensity and opacity made them feel almost hostile compared to mainstream titles. Yet they steadily became touchstones for designers across the industry. Today, it’s common for big RPG and action teams to ask themselves:

• How punishing should failure be?
• How much can we trust players to figure things out themselves?
• Is our combat demanding enough to stay interesting for 50–100 hours?

What began as a cult design style is now an informal benchmark. Even if a studio isn’t building a Soulslike, team leads may still reference these games when debating stamina systems, enemy patterns, or progression curves. That includes developers planning future entries in series like The Witcher or refining systems in open-world RPGs.

Why Punishing Games Feel So Rewarding

To understand why developers are fascinated by Souls-style design, it helps to look at the psychology behind challenge. Researchers refer to a concept called the “challenge-skill balance”, which closely matches what game designers call staying “in the flow.” When difficulty is well tuned to a player’s ability, people are more engaged and more likely to stick with an activity.¹

The sweet spot between boredom and anxiety

In very broad terms:

• Too easy → boredom, autopilot, disengagement
• Too hard → anxiety, frustration, quitting
• Just right → focus, learning, satisfaction

Soulslike games deliberately flirt with the “too hard” side, but they still obey the same principle. Players accept repeated failure because:

• They see clear patterns and learnable rules.
• They feel themselves improving over time.
• Victories are rare enough to feel meaningful.

Mastery as the real reward

In these games, loot and story matter, but the core reward is mastery. Each boss beaten and shortcut unlocked is evidence that the player’s skill has genuinely grown. Psychological research on intrinsic motivation shows that feelings of competence and autonomy are powerful drivers of enjoyment in games.²

This is one reason why developers who work on long-form RPGs pay attention to Soulslike success: it demonstrates that a large audience is willing to invest time and effort when the game treats them as capable learners rather than fragile customers.

How Designers Define “Good” Difficulty

When studios talk internally about challenge, they’re rarely asking “How do we make this brutally hard?” Instead, they’re trying to define fair difficulty that matches their vision. Behind the scenes, teams often break this down into several dimensions.

Mechanical difficulty

This covers the raw demands of play:

• Reaction time
• Precision aiming or timing
• Input complexity (combos, stance changes, cancels)

A Soulslike might keep inputs relatively simple but demand precise timing and spatial awareness. A different action RPG might add more complex combos but allow more generous timing windows.

Strategic and cognitive load

Beyond mechanics, difficulty can come from:

• Understanding enemy behaviors and synergies
• Planning builds, gear, and resource use
• Navigating large interconnected environments

Long-form RPGs often lean on this kind of difficulty: the moment-to-moment combat may be manageable, but long-term decisions still challenge the player.

Emotional and narrative tension

High stakes can make encounters feel difficult even if the mechanics aren’t extreme. Examples include:

• Fights with story-critical NPCs you care about
• Scenarios where failure has visible consequences for the world
• Choices with ambiguous or delayed payoffs

Studios striving for emotionally resonant narratives must balance this kind of tension carefully; repeated failure at a story-critical moment can break immersion if it feels arbitrary.

Why Playtesting Is Central to Balancing Challenge

No matter how experienced a design team is, they can only predict so much. That is why serious studios invest heavily in structured playtesting—sometimes for years before release. Industry surveys show most developers see playtesting as vital for understanding the player experience, especially around learning curves and difficulty spikes.³

Typical playtest stages for large games

What developers look for in difficulty feedback

Raw comments like “this boss is unfair” don’t help much on their own. Teams look for patterns and cross-reference them with game data. Useful signals include:

• Death heatmaps: where players die repeatedly
• Session length: when people stop playing after a failure streak
• Progression timing: how long it takes an average player to beat a chapter
• Build diversity: whether multiple playstyles can succeed

For games inspired by Soulslikes, there’s an extra question: which parts feel tough-but-fair, and which feel cheap? That’s where detailed playtesting reports guide redesigns—tweaking enemy windups, adjusting checkpoints, or repositioning optional content.

Drawing the Line: Motivating Challenge vs. Pure Frustration

One of the most common design debates in modern action RPGs is where to draw the line between a challenge that fuels determination and one that pushes players away. Teams discuss this not in abstract terms but by examining specific situations.

Signals that difficulty is motivating

In well-balanced tough games, you’ll often see players say things like “I was angry, but I knew what I did wrong.” That feeling comes from certain design choices:

• Readable telegraphs: big attacks have clear tells.
• Short rematch loops: getting back to the fight is fast.
• Consistent rules: the game doesn’t break its own logic.
• Meaningful progress: attempts teach new information even when you fail.

Developers aiming for Soulslike-inspired combat often treat these as non-negotiable pillars.

Red flags for “bad” difficulty

By contrast, these factors tend to turn challenge into frustration:

• Unavoidable damage with no warning
• Long runs back to bosses through tedious enemies
• Random one-shot mechanics that ignore player preparation
• Invisible rules or resistances that are never explained or hinted at

Tuning passes before release—and often even post-launch updates—try to eliminate these pain points without erasing the identity of the game.

Difficulty Modes, Accessibility, and Philosophy

Soulslike games historically eschew traditional difficulty sliders, while many big RPGs rely on them. This is more than a settings decision; it reflects different design philosophies.

Why some games avoid difficulty sliders

Designers who prefer a single, carefully tuned experience often argue that:

• Difficulty is part of the narrative and world-building.
• Balancing multiple modes dilutes resources and focus.
• Talking about the game becomes easier when everyone shares roughly the same baseline.

For them, the challenge curve is as authored as the story.

Why others embrace flexible difficulty

Large RPGs with wide audiences frequently provide several modes plus granular options (damage sliders, aim assist, etc.). Reasons include:

• Accessibility: making sure players with different abilities can participate.
• Audience diversity: not everyone enjoys intense mechanical demands.
• Content reach: story teams want more players to see late-game arcs.

Industry discussions increasingly highlight accessibility as a separate concern from mere “difficulty.” Organizations and advocacy groups emphasize that players with disabilities should be able to experience games with appropriate accommodations, a point many studios now treat as part of basic quality rather than optional generosity.⁴

What Future Witcher and Cyberpunk Projects Can Learn from Soulslikes

Teams working on story-rich RPGs with action combat often reference Soulslikes not to replicate their exact structure, but to borrow underlying principles.

Lesson 1: Respect the player’s intelligence

Souls-inspired design trusts players to:

• Connect narrative dots from environmental clues
• Learn systems without constant tutorials
• Experiment with builds and tactics

Future open-world RPGs can adopt a similar stance—delivering clearer feedback instead of more UI clutter, and letting players fail safely while they learn.

Lesson 2: Make failure interesting, not just punishing

One reason players stick with extremely challenging games is that failing often:

• Reveals new attack patterns or weaknesses
• Encourages changing gear, tactics, or routes
• Unlocks different narrative or world states

Games with complex quests and branching stories can amplify this by building in meaningful responses to failure—alternate outcomes instead of simple game overs.

Lesson 3: Design combat around clarity

Soulslike fights are intense but legible: animation tells, stamina costs, and spacing rules are consistent. For large, visually rich RPGs, there’s a temptation to prioritize spectacle over readability. Borrowing Soulslike clarity means:

• Prioritizing silhouette and motion readability over visual noise
• Ensuring camera and lock-on systems support fairness
• Keeping damage sources understandable, even in chaotic battles

Lesson 4: Use playtesting to validate philosophy, not just numbers

For any game flirting with higher difficulty, it’s not enough to adjust health values and enemy damage based on metrics. Teams also need to test whether the intended emotional arc lands: do players feel triumphant after a hard fight, or merely relieved that an ordeal is over? Long-running RPG franchises with big expectations have to pay attention to how both new and veteran players react to challenging sequences.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Soulslike games actually harder than other genres?

They’re often more demanding in terms of pattern recognition, patience, and persistence, but not necessarily in raw mechanical input. Many traditional action or competitive games require faster reaction times; Soulslikes instead emphasize learning, timing, and cautious decision-making.

Why don’t all studios copy the Soulslike formula if it’s so successful?

Because the formula depends on a specific audience expectation and tone. Not every franchise can support frequent deaths, cryptic storytelling, and sparse guidance without undermining its identity. For some series, accessibility, power fantasy, or narrative pacing take priority over relentless challenge.

Can a game be story-focused and still very difficult?

Yes, but it’s a delicate balance. High difficulty can enhance the emotional weight of certain scenes, yet excessive repetition of story beats due to failure can break immersion. Many teams experiment with adjustable difficulty, generous checkpoints, or optional boss paths to keep narrative momentum intact.

How does playtesting handle very skilled players vs. beginners?

Studios typically recruit a broad range of skill levels. They may run separate sessions for genre veterans and newcomers, then compare data. The goal is to ensure the learning curve is approachable while leaving enough headroom for experts to express mastery, sometimes through optional content or higher difficulty tiers.

Is punishing difficulty compatible with accessibility?

They’re not mutually exclusive. Smart accessibility options can remove unnecessary barriers (e.g., remappable controls, visual clarity tools, input assistance) without eliminating the core design challenge. The key is to distinguish between difficulty that expresses the game’s identity and friction that simply locks people out.