The Hardest Souls Games and Soulslikes of All Time, Ranked by Player Votes
Last updated: September 2026
The genre named itself after a game that no longer holds its own top spot. Based on real player votes, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the hardest thing FromSoftware has ever shipped at 8.59/10, with Nioh 2 a hundredth of a point behind it. The original Dark Souls sits tenth.
The bigger surprise is where the 2D games landed. Nine of the twenty-five below are side-scrollers, and Nine Sols beat every Dark Souls game on this site. Losing an axis of movement does not make a soulslike gentler. It removes the space you used to dodge into.
And then there is Elden Ring, which finishes twenty-fifth. It carries 83 ratings, more than any other game here, and averages 7.60/10. Thirty-four of those raters scored it 7 or below. Its bosses are the studio's hardest and the game wrapped around them is the studio's most forgiving.
What Counts as a Soulslike
Four things have to be present. A stamina bar that gates attacking, dodging, and blocking from the same pool. A checkpoint that restores your healing and respawns every enemy in the world. A death penalty attached to a currency you have to walk back and recover. And bosses designed to be learned across attempts rather than beaten on instinct. Every game in the ranking below has all four.
Dimension is not one of the criteria. Salt and Sanctuary ports the equip load, the bonfire loop, and the unmarked map into two dimensions almost without edit, and it rates level with Dark Souls II. Blasphemous and Grime do the same and add platforming, which is a difficulty multiplier the 3D games never have to account for.
Two admissions are worth defending. Hollow Knight and Silksong are metroidvanias first, but the combat model, the bench loop, and the geo you drop on death are lifted straight from the genre, and both were rated by players who had the Pantheons in mind. Going the other way, Sifu and Death's Door borrow the death loop without the combat model, so they are listed further down instead of ranked.
Full Rankings: Top 25 Hardest Souls Games and Soulslikes
- 1
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
The hardest game FromSoftware has ever shipped, and the votes are not close. Sekiro takes away every escape hatch the Souls games left open. There is no build to respec into, no summon to tank the boss, no heavy armour to eat a hit you misread. There is one sword, one posture bar, and a deflect window measured in frames. Thirty-eight of its fifty-four raters put it at 9 or 10, which is the most lopsided distribution of any major game in this category.
- 2
Nioh 2
Team Ninja's sequel is the most mechanically demanding action RPG in the genre and it does not care whether you keep up. Stance switching, ki pulses, burst counters, yokai shift, and a loot system that buries its own best options: Nioh 2 asks you to run four systems at once while a boss with a ten-hit string reads your recovery frames. Mission-based rather than open, which means no exploring your way past a wall.
- 3
Nine Sols
The best argument that 2D can hold its own against anything FromSoftware makes. Nine Sols is a Sekiro deflect system rebuilt as a side-scroller, and it is stricter about it than Sekiro is. Parry windows are tight, bosses have multi-phase strings that punish greed, and the Tai Chi counter means blocking is not a defensive option so much as the only offense that scales. Fifty-four raters put it two hundredths of a point behind Nioh 2.
- 4
The First Berserker: Khazan
Neople's 2025 entry landed harder than anyone expected from a Dungeon Fighter Online spin-off. Khazan is pure boss-rush structure with three weapon types, a stamina economy that punishes panic, and reflect timing lifted straight from Sekiro. There is no open world to grind in and no summon to hide behind. Fourteen raters, and the average sits above every mainline Dark Souls game.
- 5
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Team Cherry spent seven years making the sequel harder than the original, and the votes registered it immediately. Silksong is faster, more aggressive, and far less generous with checkpoints than Hollow Knight. Enemy density in the early acts is closer to a mid-game Hollow Knight zone, and the bosses are built around a moveset that rewards aggression and then punishes the exact same aggression one attack later. It outranks its predecessor by over three tenths.
- 6
Lies of P
The best non-FromSoftware Souls game anyone has made, and one of the hardest. Lies of P runs on a perfect-guard system with no forgiveness built in: chip damage accumulates, the stagger window demands a follow-up you have to earn, and the early bosses were tuned so aggressively that Neowiz patched them after launch. Twenty-nine raters put it above every Dark Souls entry.
- 7
Dark Souls II
The Dark Souls game with the worst reputation is, according to players, the hardest one. Dark Souls II is built on ideas the community never forgave: adaptability gating your i-frames, enemies placed in gangs rather than encounters, health draining toward fifty percent as you die. Fifty raters place it above both the original and Dark Souls III. Disliked and difficult are different measurements, and this is what the second one looks like.
- 8
Salt and Sanctuary
Ska Studios built a 2D Dark Souls before that was a genre, and it is more faithful than most 3D imitators. Salt and Sanctuary keeps the stamina economy, the bonfire loop, the equip load, and the pitch-dark map with no waypoints. What it adds is platforming, which means a mistimed roll can drop you off a ledge into an area you were not ready for. Twenty-three raters put it level with Dark Souls II.
- 9
Bloodborne
The game that taught the genre to stop blocking. Bloodborne swaps shields for the rally system, which means the correct answer to taking damage is to attack into it, and every instinct built from Dark Souls has to be unlearned in the first hour. Add the Chalice Dungeons and the Old Hunters expansion and the ceiling climbs well past the base game. Fifty raters, and the only FromSoftware games above it are Sekiro and Dark Souls II.
- 10
Dark Souls
The one that named the genre. Fifteen years on, Dark Souls still ranks above its own sequel and most of its imitators, and the reason is structure rather than raw damage numbers. Blighttown, the Bed of Chaos, and a mid-game difficulty spike no tutorial prepares you for are all intentional. Fifty-three raters and an average above 8.0 for a 2011 game that most of its raters played after the genre had already been solved.
- 11
Hollow Knight
Sixty-nine raters make Hollow Knight one of the most-voted games in this entire category, and it clears 8.0 anyway. The base campaign is generous compared to what surrounds it. The difficulty lives in the optional content: the Path of Pain, the Pantheon of Hallownest, and Absolute Radiance, a boss most people who finished the game have never seen. Rated as a whole rather than as a critical path, it belongs here.
- 12
Nioh
The first Nioh is rougher than the sequel in ways that are not always deliberate. Stance switching arrives with almost no tutorial, the ki pulse is mandatory rather than optional, and the mission structure front-loads two of the hardest bosses in the game. Twenty-two raters land it at 8.05, just under its own sequel, which improved the systems without softening them.
- 13
Blasphemous
A 2D soulslike with metroidvania bones and a penance system that makes dying cost something real. Blasphemous is at its hardest when it stops being a combat game: the platforming sequences over spikes and hooks are where most runs actually end, and the guilt fragments you drop on death chip away at your fervour until you go back for them. Thirty raters, and it edges out Dark Souls III.
- 14
Dark Souls III
The most polished mainline entry and the one players rate lowest of the three. Dark Souls III moves faster than its predecessors and gives you the tools to match it, which is exactly why the base game reads as fair rather than punishing. The Ringed City changes that calculation entirely, and the Nameless King and the Soul of Cinder are still among the hardest bosses FromSoftware has written. Fifty-four raters at 8.02.
- 15
Remnant II
A soulslike where the boss is across the room and shooting back. Remnant II keeps the stamina dodges and the checkpoint loop, then hands you a gun and procedurally rebuilds the world every campaign, which means the encounter you learned last run may not exist this one. Apocalypse difficulty and the harder Aberrations push it well past what its shooter framing suggests.
- 16
Demon's Souls
The prototype, and it is still not easy. Demon's Souls invented the fog gate, the bloodstain, and the tendency system that quietly makes the world harder as you die in it. World 5 remains one of the meanest stretches FromSoftware has built. Forty-four raters put it below the games it inspired, mostly because Boletaria is shorter and more forgiving with its checkpoints than anything that came after.
- 17
Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist
The follow-up to Ender Lilies is harder than the original and better at it. Ender Magnolia hands you a roster of spirit attacks with real cooldown discipline, and its bosses have the multi-phase pattern density of a 3D soulslike compressed into two dimensions. Thirteen raters put it above every Elden Ring release.
- 18
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
A 2025 soulslike out of China with a madness meter that punishes death by spawning a hostile version of you. Wuchang leans on long boss strings, a skill tree that locks behind commitment rather than experimentation, and encounter design that assumes you will learn the whole moveset before you win. Rated harder than Elden Ring by the players who have finished it.
- 19
Remnant: From the Ashes
The original run-based soulslike shooter, and the one that proved the combination works. Remnant: From the Ashes is at its worst when the procedural generation hands you a boss with adds in a room with no cover, which happens often enough to feel designed. Solo runs are meaningfully harder than co-op, and the votes here reflect people playing it the hard way.
- 20
Elden Ring Nightreign
A three-night roguelike built out of Elden Ring parts, with a timer that does not stop and a Nightlord at the end. Nightreign is harder than Elden Ring in the ways that matter to a run: no summoning ashes to trivialize a fight, no farming a level advantage, and a randomized map that decides how much of the timer you spend lost. Twelve raters, and it already sits above the game it was built from.
- 21
The Surge
Deck13's exosuit soulslike is a limb-targeting game pretending to be a Dark Souls clone. The Surge makes you choose between attacking armoured limbs for the schematic you want and unarmoured limbs for the kill you need, which turns every encounter into an economy problem while a machine tries to bisect you. Weaker at the end than the start, but the first four hours are genuinely brutal.
- 22
Grime
A soulslike built around absorbing enemies with a black hole, which sounds gimmicky until you realize the parry is the absorb and the absorb has a smaller window than a Souls parry. Grime asks for precision on a system it barely explains, then builds bosses that require it. Twenty-five raters put it above Elden Ring.
- 23
Vigil: The Longest Night
An underrated 2D soulslike with a curse system that degrades your character while you play. Vigil: The Longest Night runs on stamina, weapon weight, and status effects that stack faster than you can cleanse them, and it is far less interested in being fair than its presentation suggests. Thirteen raters, and it edges out Elden Ring itself.
- 24
The Last Faith
A gothic 2D soulslike that borrows Bloodborne's aggression and Blasphemous's cruelty. The Last Faith is heavy on ranged enemy placement in platforming sections, which is the single most reliable way to make a side-scroller frustrating, and the bosses are long enough that one late mistake costs the whole attempt. Eighteen raters at 7.61.
- 25
Elden Ring
Eighty-three ratings, the largest sample of any game on this list, and the lowest average of any mainline FromSoftware title. That is not a fluke. Elden Ring is the first Souls game where being stuck is optional: you can leave, level up somewhere else, respec into a build that trivializes the fight, or summon Mimic Tear and watch. Thirty-four of its raters scored it 7 or below. The bosses are the hardest FromSoftware has written and the game around them is the most forgiving they have built.
Honorable Mentions
Just missed the top 25
Real soulslikes that landed under the cut, several of them by a few hundredths of a point.
- Nioh 3 (7.57/10, 14 ratings). Team Ninja's third entry keeps the stance and ki systems but softens the mission structure that made the first two so punishing. Fourteen early raters put it just under the games it follows, which is roughly where a more approachable Nioh should land.
- Ashen (7.57/10, 7 ratings). A cel-shaded soulslike with permanent companions and no map, which sounds gentle and is not. Ashen makes navigation part of the difficulty and its bosses hit harder than the art style suggests.
- Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (7.56/10, 16 ratings). The 2021 original is a soulslike metroidvania with an outstanding soundtrack and a much stricter mid-game than its opening implies. Sixteen raters put it just below the sequel that improved on it.
- Death's Gambit (7.55/10, 11 ratings). A 2D soulslike from 2018 that never quite escaped its own reputation. Death's Gambit has real depth in its weapon classes and its bosses have hard-mode variants that most players never touch. Eleven raters place it just below the cut.
- Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (7.45/10, 11 ratings). Team Ninja's Three Kingdoms entry replaces stamina with a morale system, which means the difficulty comes from where you are on the map rather than how much you can spam. Wo Long is the most forgiving thing Team Ninja has made and still ranks in the sevens.
- Blasphemous II (7.41/10, 29 ratings). The sequel is better designed and easier than the original, which is a trade most players accepted. Blasphemous II drops the platforming cruelty and the penance system, and twenty-nine raters registered the difference: six tenths below the first game.
- Mortal Shell II (7.38/10, 21 ratings). Cold Symmetry's sequel is harder than the beta suggested and softer than the first game's defenders wanted. Shell choice does most of the work in deciding how rough a run gets.
Softer than their reputations, and the souls-adjacent
The first four are full soulslikes that players simply do not rate as punishing. The rest borrow the death loop without the stamina-gated combat that defines the genre, so they sit outside the ranking entirely.
- Black Myth: Wukong (7.31/10, 16 ratings). Game Science's debut has spectacular bosses and a difficulty curve that flattens out once you have the transformations and the spell loadout. Sixteen raters at 7.31 put it below every FromSoftware game, which surprised a lot of people who only watched the boss trailers.
- Mortal Shell (7.21/10, 14 ratings). The original Mortal Shell is short, dense, and built around a hardening mechanic that turns you to stone mid-animation. Fourteen raters at 7.21: sharp for its length, but the campaign ends before the difficulty peaks.
- Lords of the Fallen (7.00/10, 13 ratings). The 2023 reboot has an umbral world layered over the physical one and enemy density that reviewers called excessive at launch. Hexworks patched it down repeatedly, and thirteen raters landed on a flat 7.00: hard, but not in the way the genre's best entries are.
- Code Vein (6.00/10, 10 ratings). Bandai Namco's anime soulslike gives you an AI partner who will revive you, which is the single biggest difficulty reduction anyone has applied to this genre. Code Vein at 6.00 is the clearest example on this list of a soulslike that removed the thing that made the genre hard.
- Sifu (6.80/10, 20 ratings). A kung fu brawler with a soulslike death loop: every death ages you, and age is a permanent stat penalty. Sifu is punishing on its own terms rather than the genre's, and 6.80 across twenty raters reflects a game most people eventually beat.
- Tunic (6.53/10, 34 ratings). A Zelda-shaped game with Souls combat and an instruction manual you assemble from scattered pages. Tunic is hard for reasons that have nothing to do with the parry, which is why it ranks where it does among people rating combat difficulty.
- Death's Door (5.00/10, 12 ratings). The most accessible thing in this neighbourhood by a wide margin. Death's Door has the roll, the stamina-free combat, and the checkpoint doors, and twelve raters put it at a flat 5.00. Souls-adjacent in style, not in demand.
How This List Is Built
Every game on this list was rated by real players on How Difficult Is It?. The ranking is based on each game's average difficulty score, with a minimum of 5 ratings required to qualify. This is a monthly snapshot; for live rankings that update every hour, see the rankings page.
- Source: Player-submitted difficulty ratings on How Difficult Is It?
- Genre scope: FromSoftware Souls titles and third-party soulslikes, in 2D and 3D, judged on stamina-gated combat, world-respawning checkpoints, a recoverable death penalty, and learn-by-repetition bosses
- What the score means: Difficulty of clearing the game as each rater experienced it, including the optional and endgame content they chose to attempt
- Minimum ratings: At least 5 player ratings required to appear
- Sort method: Average difficulty score, highest first. Rating count breaks ties.
- Exclusions: Disqualified or flagged ratings are removed before scoring. Bundles, editions, and DLC listings are excluded so a game appears once.
- Update frequency: Monthly snapshot
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hardest Souls game according to player ratings?
As of September 2026, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice leads at 8.59/10 from 54 player ratings on How Difficult Is It?. It is the hardest game FromSoftware has released by a clear margin, and it outranks every third-party soulslike as well.
How is this ranking calculated?
Games are ranked by their average difficulty score submitted by players on How Difficult Is It?. Only games with at least 5 ratings are included. Disqualified or spam ratings are excluded. Games with equal average scores are sorted by number of ratings. Both FromSoftware Souls titles and third-party soulslikes are eligible, in 2D and 3D.
Is Elden Ring the hardest FromSoftware game?
No. Elden Ring averages 7.60/10 across 83 ratings, the largest sample on this list and the lowest average of any mainline FromSoftware title. Its bosses are the hardest the studio has written, but the open world lets you leave, level elsewhere, respec, or summon a spirit ash, and none of the earlier games offered that.
Are 2D soulslikes as hard as the 3D ones?
Yes, and the votes are blunt about it. 9 of the top 25 are 2D, led by Nine Sols at 8.56/10. Removing an axis of movement does not make a soulslike easier, it removes the room you had to dodge into.
What counts as a soulslike on this list?
A stamina-gated combat loop, a checkpoint that respawns the world, a death penalty attached to a currency you have to go back for, and boss fights built to be learned by repetition. Games that borrow the death loop without the combat model, such as Sifu and Death's Door, are listed separately rather than ranked.
Can I add my own difficulty rating?
Yes. Create a free account on How Difficult Is It? and rate any game you have played. Your rating is included in the community average and updates the live rankings within the hour.
