Developer Neople and publisher Nexon have avoided the term Soulslike in official marketing material, but The First Berserker: Khazan has been making waves among fans of FromSoftware's flavor of action RPG.
Positioned as a prequel story for the Dungeon Fighter Online universe and scheduled to launch March 27, The First Berserker: Khazan promises "hardcore" combat and epic boss fights, and its Steam demo is living up to that so far.
Ahead of Steam Next Fest's demo extravaganza, I had a play of the Khazan demo – which has a stack of 3,436 Steam reviews that many full games would envy, and with a 90% positive score to boot – and was quickly sucked into it.
Some tried-and-true Souls mechanics are introduced quickly – familiar UI and in-universe stand-ins for bonfires, Estus flasks, and Souls as XP – but several distinctions also become clear in the opening minutes, and I'm not just talking about the lovely celshaded look featuring buckets of blood.
This is a much faster game than the likes of Elden Ring or even Bloodborne, with an emphasis on perfect dodges and blocks between swift combos that can lead into finishing moves when you break an enemy's stance.