Games like Elden Ring

Both games anchor their challenge around learning enemy patterns through repeated, high-stakes encounters—but where ELDEN RING lets you circle the map when stuck, Dark Souls III forces you into a more linear gauntlet of boss mastery. This tighter design sharpens the same skill-building loop you loved, without the option to overlevel and bypass difficulty.

The co-op summoning system feels nearly identical: you'll drop signs, fight alongside strangers, and experience that same cooperative tension where a partner's death costs you resources. However, Dark Souls III's more compact level design means your co-op runs feel purposeful rather than wandering—every hallway connects meaningfully to a boss encounter.

If ELDEN RING's grinding felt tedious at times, Dark Souls III resolves this through stricter pacing and shorter playthroughs, though it trades your open-world freedom for a more claustrophobic, interconnected world.

Best for: Players who craved ELDEN RING's combat challenge but felt overwhelmed by choice—or those ready to experience the design philosophy that inspired it.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to DARK SOULS III.

Every duel in Sekiro asks for the same kind of disciplined, read-the-opponent focus that makes ELDEN RING’s hardest boss fights so memorable. You’re still learning enemy patterns, timing your responses, and surviving through precision rather than brute force. That loop creates the same satisfying rush of turning a punishing encounter into one you can control.

The overlap goes beyond difficulty. Both games reward patience, spatial awareness, and careful risk management, with Souls-like tension shaping every mistake into a lesson. Sekiro channels that into a tighter combat system, so victory feels earned because you’re mastering one style deeply instead of swapping between many builds. If ELDEN RING’s cryptic progression sometimes felt like a grind, Sekiro trims that away and replaces it with cleaner momentum.

The big tradeoff is freedom for focus. You lose the open-ended character customization and co-op options, but gain a sharper, more aggressive combat rhythm that keeps pressure on every exchange. Best for players who want mastery, punishing boss fights, and a darker world that demands exact execution.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The dread of traversing a hostile environment where every corner hides a potential ambush will feel instantly familiar to any Tarnished. This shared emphasis on deliberate, high-stakes combat ensures that your hard-won victories provide the same intense rush of relief found in the Lands Between.

Much like your previous journey, this world relies on a mature dark fantasy atmosphere where history is unearthed through environmental storytelling rather than traditional cutscenes. Because the map is designed as a vertical, interconnected labyrinth, unlocking a shortcut back to a bonfire mirrors the tactical satisfaction of discovering a hidden Site of Grace.

This experience trades massive horizontal breadth for a dense, intricately wound world that rewards spatial memory over map markers. This tighter structure helps mitigate the overwhelming grinding and travel fatigue found in larger landscapes by ensuring every corridor serves a specific mechanical purpose.

Best for players who prioritize meticulous level design and the claustrophobic tension of a perfectly crafted gauntlet.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to DARK SOULS™: REMASTERED.

That feeling of standing outside a boss fog gate, heart rate up, mentally rehearsing your approach — Hollow Knight delivers that exact tension in almost every major encounter. Both games are built around the loop of failure, adaptation, and hard-won mastery that makes each victory feel genuinely earned.

The Souls-like DNA runs deep in both: lost currency on death, scarce checkpoints, and an atmosphere that communicates lore through environment rather than exposition. That last point matters — just like Elden Ring, Hollow Knight trusts you to piece together a fragmented, melancholy world on your own terms, which rewards curiosity and punishes passivity in the same satisfying way.

The sharpest difference is scale: Hollow Knight is 2D and intimate, trading sweeping open vistas for a dense, hand-drawn underground labyrinth. If Elden Ring's cryptic storytelling frustrated you, Hollow Knight's world-building is equally obscure but more tightly contained — easier to absorb without feeling lost.

Best for players who value precision and atmosphere over spectacle, and who want a challenge that respects their time without padding difficulty through scale.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Hollow Knight.

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is the structural blueprint for Elden Ring, centering on the same high-stakes, punishing combat that demands mastery of every enemy encounter. Both games reward patience and build experimentation, providing a deliberate sense of progression that makes overcoming bosses feel earned.

You lose the sheer scale of an open world in favor of interconnected, dense map design that forces linear progression through treacherous corridors. This shift removes the freedom to explore elsewhere when you hit a difficulty wall.

Pick this up if you want the uncompromising combat depth of Elden Ring but can live without the sprawling freedom of the Lands Between.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition.

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin shares ELDEN RING’s core appeal: challenging, skill-based combat with deep character customization. Both games emphasize co-op play and a dark fantasy setting, which matters for players who thrive on teamwork in brutal, atmospheric worlds. Their action RPG mechanics and demanding difficulty offer similarly rewarding progression loops.

The key tradeoff lies in Dark Souls II’s dated controls and stability issues, which often frustrate more than enhance, contrasting ELDEN RING’s polished combat and world design. Its story and environment feel less cohesive and impactful compared to ELDEN RING’s expansive open world and art direction. Expect more clunk and less awe here.

Pick Dark Souls II if you want precise build variety and classic souls-like combat but can tolerate rougher mechanics and a more fragmented narrative. This is for players eager to relive Souls challenges without the modern polish of ELDEN RING’s sprawling fantasy.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin.

Both games nail the Souls-like formula through relentless, pattern-based combat where positioning and timing matter more than stats. You'll die repeatedly, learn enemy movesets, and progress through mastery rather than grinding past difficulty.

Salt and Sanctuary matches Elden Ring's atmospheric world-building and dark fantasy tone, which creates the dread that makes victories feel earned.

The crucial difference: Salt and Sanctuary compresses everything into 2D sidescroller perspective, eliminating Elden Ring's open-world exploration and environmental scale entirely.

Pick this up if you crave the Souls-like *gameplay loop* itself and can trade open-world freedom for tighter, more digestible combat encounters.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Salt and Sanctuary.

The dual-realm mechanic is the defining bridge between these two titles, forcing you to navigate the living world and its necrotic shadow simultaneously to progress. This adds a layer of tactical environmental puzzle-solving that rewards the same curiosity and persistence required to survive the Lands Between.

While ELDEN RING excels in its vast, seamless freedom, Lords of the Fallen focuses on a tighter, more deliberate atmospheric density. You will sacrifice the grand sense of scale for a more claustrophobic, interconnected dark fantasy experience.

Pick this up if you crave Souls-like combat and complex world-building but can live with a less polished, more linear execution.

If you enjoyed this game, see our list of games similar to Lords of the Fallen.