As recently mentioned, I played a little bit of Wuchang and Mortal Shell 2 for a bit. I haven’t continued playing for around a week now, but I might this weekend - not sure yet. I’ll definitely be playing more Slay the Spire 2. There’s been a new update that adds an entirely new character to the game, the Fool, who is a lot of fun and adds new character-specific mechanics that are very unique.

The Fromsoft soulslikes are notorious for many a thing: the difficulty of the game (levels as well as bosses), the lore, the fandom. What stands out to many is the atmosphere, the feeling of being thrown into an (un-)inhabited world that existed prior to your playing and will likely do so after you have finished your playthrough (bar specific endings with world-ending implications).

Is there any piece of media that evokes a similar feeling in you? Maybe a book, or a movie, or even another game?

I am not sure if I can come up with any non-game examples, but even though I am yet to finish the game, Outer Wilds or Subnautica give me a similar feeling. These vast open worlds (even an entire galaxy) exist outside the meddling of third parties (mostly). They have existed before I have entered the world and will likely do so after I am gone. Not a lot is explaiend about these worlds - you just exist and try to figure things out on your own.

The Mass Effect series gives me a similar feeling. You’re all alone with your crew, visiting all kinds of planets and races and whatnot. A lot of things are explained, you have a codex entry for pretty much everything you could imagine, but a lot of the story predates Shepard’s existence - think the Reapers, for example. Pretty astounding stuff.

I’m very curious to hear your thoughts! Have a nice weekend, folks. :) ✨

  • Starfuckers inc.
    3·
    1 day ago

    I have three and I know two are a cop out because of the literary influence

    1- Lovecraftian Horror. specifically with Bloodborne. this is the cop out answer as I know Dunwich Horror(? could be call of cthulhu i forget the second) and Shadow over Innsmouth were sources for inspiration by Miyazaki, I think the Fishing Hamlet in old Hunters is very Shadows over innsmouth with the fish people as well as a fishing town on the coast coming into contact with The Deep ones. The Labyrinth under yharnam and research into that contact leading to eyes growing on the inside but also to madness from the person is very in line with Lovecraftian protagonists and their declining mental stability. I think the best example of this is in the illustrated Call of Cthulhu from Baranger and the movie “The Color out of Space” starring Nicolas Cage which is based on the story The Colour out of space.

    2- Signalis while not a traditional Soulslike, its very much influenced by the Lovecraftian horror and has bosses, which I know you can say for alot of games since “has bosses means its soulslike” is a broad characterization, however I think Signalis does this concept the best and keeps the lovecraftian and Robert W Chambers influence present. Signalis is much in the vein of classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill games and even has its story from Silent Hill 2 and has many homages to those games series but shot into space and about a replika lesbian, yay lesbians, trying to fulfill her promise, all the while contending with a universe thats beyond corrupted and her cyclical life as every time she dies or fails her mission, Ariane (the person LSTR, the main protag, kept a promise to) resets the world by pulling it apart and putting it back together, though without looking at any instruction manual and just kinda putting things together haphazardly. The King in Yellow makes a direct appearance as well as allusions to The Festival from Lovecraft being present. the soulslike part is similar to Bloodborne with its lovecraftian/weird horror roots in its writing, though I do think people being familiar with Silent Hill 2 – remake or original – is doing a lot of the heavy lifting with its story. they took the David Lynch approach with its story and made it feel dreamy and hard to understand in its entirety. if you couldnt tell I really like Signalis

    3-Jidaigeki Films (this is mainly on Sekiro) this is another easy answer as Sekiro and Japanese period pieces share the same setting of that being before the meiji restoration in the 1860s. Jidaigeki is the japanese word for period piece and they share alot with Sekiro, being mostly about Ronin and Samurai and bonds that tie them to their lord. these came out mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, same time period as Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns in Italy, and good examples of them are any Kurosawa film, Harakiri and Sansho the Bailiff as well as 13 assassins from Takashi Miike, which to be honest is just a Seven Samurai remake. Sekiro being in the Sengoku era feels right at home, especially if it had a black and white filter like Ghost of Yotei and Tsushima, in that era of film.

    well I guess I wrote about things I like that have similar feelings to Sekiro and Bloodborne than souls as a whole but oh well. seriously, read lovecraft, it gave me a deeper appreciation of Bloodborne knowing where those references and ideas came from. also play signalis, that is just a good as fuck horror game. if the formatting is off im sorry, writing is hard

    • Druid@lemmy.zipOPMEnglish
      2·
      24 hours ago

      💜 appreciate your thorough answer, I’ll have a look at these

    • Starfuckers inc.
      2·
      1 day ago

      forgot to mention the evangelion and ghost in the shell references in Signalis but that wasnt the question you asked, its neat trivia if you know your anime