What is a Soulsike?

gamerant.com:

Action role-playing games have become an exceptionally popular genre in modern video games. And like other genres, it has grown with time and taken inspiration from many titles. That being said, one of the most influential games in action RPGs has been FromSoftware's Demon's Souls.

FromSoftware was no stranger to RPGs before Demon’s Souls, but when the title was first released in 2009, it began a franchise of games that would change not only the genre but the industry as a whole. Helmed by creative director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, the Soulsborne series helped create the Soulslike subgenre which is a formulaic combination of high difficulty and convoluted, environmental storytelling.

Unlikely Franchises That Would Actually Make Great Soulslikes

Demon’s Souls is the spiritual predecessor to not just the Dark Souls series and its extended Soulsborne titles, but all Soulslike games. When creating Demon’s Souls, FromSoftware and Miyazaki likely had no idea that the series was going to snowball into such a successful franchise.

The formula for the Souls games is fairly simple. Players are challenged to defeat enemies and bosses while utilizing a plethora of different weapons and items, all while keeping track of limited health resources and managing stamina use. Each game in the Soulsborne series has tweaked this formula slightly, but they all stay close to these basic mechanics.

The goal behind the original title was to create a game that was punishing yet fair and had a simplistic story on the surface, but became more interconnected and interesting the more the player delved into it. Demon’s Souls accomplished these goals by featuring many unique locations all with their own challenging enemies and bosses that are all connected