Playing An Easy Soulslike Game Made Me Realize Why They Need To Be Hard

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I love , but I would never pretend that I'm particularly good at it. The Soulslike genre that, and other FromSoftware games defined is typically built on the idea of difficulty, and any struggles with hand-eye coordination or response time can be punishing. With how many games have followed in those footsteps by now, however, some are bound to be easier than others, and one game that significantly reduces the level of challenge is

I had my eye on ever since its launch, and I finally decided to play it this past month. It's the kind of game that's perfect for a bundle purchase, with an interesting hook that comes with the caveat of an apparently flawed execution. tells an alt-history story of the French Revolution where robots known as Automats run amok, placing players into the shoes of an unusually sentient Automat tasked with rescuing Marie Antoinette's children. Developed by the French studio Spiders, it's a game straining for AAA production with AA resources.

Screen Rant recently spoke to Spiders co-founder and CEO Jehanne Rousseau during Bigben week about the upcoming Greedfall 2 and Steelrising.

The gameplay of starts much like any Soulslike might, with a fairly linear section of introductory challenges to introduce the rhythm of dodging and countering enemy attacks. I was pleasantly surprised by the weapons, which offer up some creative options like fans that can be sliced forward or spun into a shield, and the standard Soulslike invitation to mastery feels immediately apparent. The movement might not be as honed as in the best games of the genre, but the first boss forced me to work out the rhythm of gameplay and emerge better.

Then I kept playing, and kept getting easier. Both the arc of player improvement and the actual progression of weapons and leveling feel like they significantly outpace the game's difficulty curve, to the extent where I suspect the game was nerfed in development. Designing games that are satisfyingly hard can require a lot of