15 Games Like Elden Ring for Fans of Punishing Combat and Open Worlds
The best games like Elden Ring in 2026. Handpicked action RPGs with brutal combat, open exploration, and worlds that reward curiosity and persistence.
Elden Ring did something that should not have worked. It took the punishing, death-heavy combat of Dark Souls, a series defined by tight corridors and carefully gated progression, and dropped it into a vast open world with almost no guidance. No quest markers. No minimap compass. No level-scaling to smooth over the fact that you wandered into a zone meant for characters forty levels above you. FromSoftware trusted players to explore, to get destroyed, to learn from it, and to come back when they were ready. That trust paid off with one of the best-selling games of the decade.
What makes Elden Ring special is not any single system in isolation. The combat is refined Dark Souls. The open world is enormous. Neither is unique. The difference is how they interact. Getting stuck on Margit does not mean banging your head against the same fog wall for hours. You ride Torrent in the opposite direction, stumble into a catacomb, find a spirit ash that changes your approach, and come back with new options. The world itself is the difficulty curve. Exploration is not just rewarded, it is the primary way the game teaches you to play.
The build variety compounds this. Colossal greatsword stagger builds, bleed-proc dual-wielding, pure sorcery that nukes bosses from range. Spirit ashes function as an opt-in difficulty adjustment without ever being labeled as one. The result is a game that sold 28 million copies by making the hardest genre in gaming feel approachable without making it easy. Shadow of the Erdtree then reminded everyone that FromSoftware can still make content that feels borderline unfair in the best way.
If you have exhausted the Lands Between and the Land of Shadow, these 15 games scratch similar itches. They are grouped by which aspect of Elden Ring they capture best.
Open World Exploration
These games prioritize the feeling of riding toward a distant landmark and finding something worth fighting when you get there.
Dragon's Dogma 2
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Dragon's Dogma 2 is the closest thing to Elden Ring's sense of journey in a completely different combat system. There is almost no fast travel by default, which sounds punishing until you realize that the entire game is built around what happens between destinations. A simple walk to a quest objective turns into a running battle with a griffin that picks up your companion and flies away with them. You chase it across a field, climb onto its back mid-flight, and stab at its wings until it crashes. None of that was scripted.
The Pawn system gives you three AI companions that learn from your behavior and other players' worlds. The vocation (class) system encourages experimentation, and Magick Archer feels nothing like Fighter. The world is smaller than the Lands Between but denser with emergent encounters. The lack of fast travel is a design philosophy: every journey is content. If Elden Ring's open world exploration was the hook for you more than the Souls combat, Dragon's Dogma 2 delivers that sense of dangerous travel better than almost anything else.
Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom
Platforms: Switch
The Zelda games do not have Elden Ring's combat depth, but they invented the modern version of the open world philosophy that Elden Ring refined. Breath of the Wild was the game that proved you could drop a player into a massive world with almost no direction and trust them to find their own path. Every surface is climbable. Every problem has multiple solutions. The physics engine is a toy that the entire world is built to interact with.
Tears of the Kingdom adds Ultrahand and Fuse, turning the world into an engineering sandbox where you build vehicles, weapons, and flying machines from parts scattered everywhere. The Depths add an entire dark underground layer that mirrors the surface map. If what you loved about Elden Ring was genuine discovery, of seeing something in the distance and knowing you can go there and find something real, the Zelda games perfected that feeling first.
Outward
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Outward is a survival RPG that treats adventure the way Elden Ring treats combat: with zero hand-holding and real consequences. There is no fast travel. You carry a backpack that slows you down. You need to eat, drink, sleep, and manage your body temperature. When you "die," you do not reload; the game continues with a dynamic consequence. Maybe bandits drag you to their camp. Maybe a traveler rescues you and drops you somewhere unfamiliar.
The combat is deliberately clunky in a way that makes every encounter dangerous. Magic requires multi-step rituals rather than pressing a button. Co-op is split-screen or online, and the game is vastly more enjoyable with a partner. Outward lacks Elden Ring's polish, but it captures the spirit of genuine adventure and real stakes better than any AAA game has tried.
Challenging Souls-Like Combat
These games focus on the mechanical depth, boss design, and stamina-based combat that FromSoftware built its reputation on.
Dark Souls 3
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Dark Souls 3 remains the tightest combat in the pre-Elden Ring FromSoftware catalog. It is faster than Dark Souls 1 and 2 without reaching Bloodborne's aggression, sitting in a sweet spot that Elden Ring later built on directly. Weapon arts gave each weapon a unique special move, a system that Elden Ring expanded into Ashes of War. The boss roster is consistently excellent from start to finish. Abyss Watchers, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Nameless King, and the DLC lineup of Sister Friede, Demon Prince, and Slave Knight Gael represent some of the best boss fights FromSoftware has ever designed.
The level design is more linear than Elden Ring but denser for it. Every zone is handcrafted with shortcuts looping back to bonfires, hidden walls, optional areas, and NPC questlines that interweave in obscure ways. If Elden Ring's open world sometimes left you directionless, Dark Souls 3 always has a critical path forward while still hiding plenty of secrets for thorough explorers. The PvP scene is still active in 2026 thanks to community efforts, and the build variety, while narrower than Elden Ring, is deep enough for dozens of distinct playstyles.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Sekiro throws out nearly everything from the Souls formula except the difficulty and replaces it with something entirely its own. There are no builds. No armor sets. No weapon variety. You have a katana and a prosthetic arm, and the game is balanced around the assumption that you will learn to use both. The posture system replaces stamina management with a rhythm game of deflects, where holding block is a trap and aggression is survival. When you perfectly deflect a combo and drive your sword through a boss's guard break, nothing in gaming feels better.
The grappling hook transforms exploration into something vertical and fast. The stealth system lets you thin enemy groups before engaging. Resurrection adds a tactical layer to death itself, where dying and reviving mid-fight is sometimes the correct play. Sekiro won Game of the Year because it committed fully to a single vision instead of trying to offer options. The trade-off is that if the combat does not click for you, there is no alternative approach. But if it does click, Sekiro's skill ceiling is the highest FromSoftware has set.
Lies of P
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Lies of P takes the Pinocchio fairy tale and turns it into a gothic nightmare set in a Belle Epoque city overrun by murderous automatons, and somehow it works. The weapon assembly system is the standout mechanic: every weapon can be broken into a blade and a handle, and you can mix and match freely. Pair a heavy greatsword blade with a rapier handle for a fast but devastating combination. The guard regain system encourages blocking by letting you recover lost health through immediate counterattacks, which keeps fights aggressive rather than passive.
The atmosphere rivals Bloodborne. Rain-slicked cobblestone streets, operatic puppet theaters gone wrong, and a hotel full of increasingly suspicious NPCs create a world dripping with dread and beauty. Boss fights are frequent, demanding, and occasionally unfair in ways that a patch or two have mostly smoothed out. The Lie system adds a narrative wrinkle where your dialogue choices are literally about truth versus deception, tying mechanics to the source material in clever ways. It is the best soulslike not made by FromSoftware, and the announced DLC and sequel suggest the developers know what they have.
Nioh 2
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5
If Elden Ring's build variety hooked you, Nioh 2 has an order of magnitude more depth to offer. The stance system gives every weapon three full movesets (high, mid, low), and the ki pulse mechanic rewards precise timing with stamina recovery that keeps you attacking. Add yokai abilities absorbed from defeated demons, Burst Counters for punishing specific attacks, and a loot system with set bonuses, gear affixes, and tempering options, and you have a combat system that makes Elden Ring look restrained.
The mission-based structure is not open world, which is a legitimate drawback if exploration is what you want. But each mission is a dense, handcrafted level with shortcuts and secrets in the Souls tradition. The weapon variety is absurd. Katana, dual swords, odachi, kusarigama, switchglaive, splitstaff, fists, and hatchets each play like entirely different games. The Depths endgame provides hundreds of hours of optimization for players who want to push builds to their limits. Nioh 2 demands more mechanical engagement than any other game on this list, and it rewards that engagement proportionally.
Black Myth: Wukong
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Black Myth: Wukong is a visual spectacle with boss fights that belong in the same conversation as FromSoftware's best. The game adapts Journey to the West into a linear action RPG where the set-piece battles are the entire point. Bosses are massive, cinematic, multi-phase affairs against mythological figures, each with devastating attack patterns that require genuine learning. The stance system lets you switch between three fighting styles mid-combo, and transformation abilities (temporarily becoming defeated bosses) add a layer of strategic resource management.
The structure is more God of War than Elden Ring. Levels are wide corridors with branching paths rather than an open world. The RPG systems are shallower than a true soulslike. But the production values are extraordinary, the bestiary pulls from a mythology that Western audiences rarely encounter, and the difficulty on higher settings is no joke. If Elden Ring's boss fights were the highlight for you, the encounters in Wukong's later chapters compete directly with anything in the Lands Between.
Remnant 2
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Remnant 2 asks what happens when you build a soulslike around guns instead of swords, and the answer is that it works far better than it should. The third-person shooting is precise and weighty, with weapons that feel meaningfully different. The archetype (class) system is deep, and dual-classing opens up hybrid builds that change how you approach every encounter. A Handler/Summoner plays nothing like a Gunslinger/Hunter, and both are viable.
The procedural generation is the defining feature. Each playthrough shuffles which dungeons, bosses, and events you encounter, meaning comparing notes with friends is interesting because they may have seen entirely different content. The best bosses stand with anything FromSoftware has designed, and co-op for three players is the best multiplayer soulslike experience available. Adventure Mode lets you reroll individual worlds without restarting your campaign if a run feels weak.
Dark Fantasy Worlds and Deep Lore
These games capture Elden Ring's atmospheric storytelling, environmental narrative, and the feeling that you are exploring a world with history written into its architecture.
Bloodborne
Platforms: PS4, PS5 (backward compatible)
Bloodborne is the game that Elden Ring players who started with FromSoftware's open world should play next, and the one most likely to become their favorite. The Victorian gothic setting transitions from beast hunting to cosmic horror over the course of the game in ways that feel genuinely shocking the first time. Combat is faster and more aggressive than Dark Souls, with a rally system that rewards attacking immediately after taking damage instead of retreating to heal.
The trick weapons are FromSoftware's best weapon design. Every weapon has two forms accessed with a transformation attack, and the moveset changes entirely between forms. The Saw Cleaver alone has more depth than most games' entire arsenals. Chalice Dungeons provide procedurally generated endgame content with some of the hardest bosses in the series. The persistent PS4 exclusivity remains frustrating in 2026, but the world design, atmosphere, and boss fights are as close to a perfect action game as FromSoftware has come.
Blasphemous 2
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Blasphemous 2 is a 2D soulslike Metroidvania with art direction that punches well above its weight class. The pixel art depicts a world of grotesque religious iconography, baroque architecture, and body horror that channels Spanish Catholic imagery into something genuinely unsettling and beautiful. Three starting weapons each gate different traversal paths through an interconnected map, giving the game strong replay value and moment-to-moment variety.
Combat is precise and demanding, built around parries, aerial combos, and dodge timing that rewards aggression. Boss fights are pattern-recognition challenges that hit hard enough to demand respect but stay fair enough to feel satisfying when you crack them. The lore is delivered through item descriptions, environmental storytelling, and cryptic NPC dialogue in the Souls tradition. If you want Elden Ring's atmosphere and difficulty in a 2D format with a 15-hour runtime, Blasphemous 2 is the best option available.
Lords of the Fallen (2023)
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
The 2023 reboot of Lords of the Fallen has a single idea that elevates it above most soulslikes: the Umbral realm. At any point, you can shift between the world of the living and a dark, decayed parallel dimension where the dead reside. Umbral reveals hidden platforms, alternate paths, and secrets that do not exist in the living world. The catch is that the longer you stay in Umbral, the more aggressive the enemies become, creating a risk-reward tension that never fully lets up.
The world design is closer to Dark Souls 1's interconnected approach than most modern soulslikes attempt. Zones link together with shortcuts and elevation changes that reward spatial awareness. Combat is weighty and deliberate, with a magic system built around the Umbral lamp that lets you rip the souls from enemies mid-fight. The game launched in rough technical shape, which damaged its reputation, but extensive patching has addressed the worst issues. The dual-world concept gives exploration a puzzle-solving dimension that Elden Ring's more straightforward open world does not have.
Mortal Shell
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Mortal Shell is what happens when a small team understands exactly what makes Dark Souls work and builds something lean and focused around that understanding. The hardening mechanic is the standout: you can turn to stone mid-animation, absorbing a hit and then continuing your attack or dodge once the stone breaks. The timing of when you harden (during a swing, mid-roll, while using an item) creates an entire layer of defensive strategy that no other soulslike has replicated.
There are only four shells (classes) and four weapons, but each combination plays differently enough to justify multiple playthroughs across the game's 10-15 hour runtime. The world is small and dense, interconnected with shortcuts through swamps, temples, and crypts. Familiarity with items is a progression system: using an item while unfamiliar with it risks a negative effect, but once you have used it enough, its properties are fully revealed. Mortal Shell does not overstay its welcome, and that restraint is itself a statement in a genre that increasingly chases the hundred-hour mark.
Code Vein
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Code Vein wraps soulslike combat in anime aesthetics and a surprisingly emotional narrative about immortal revenants in a post-apocalyptic world. The Blood Code system is the main draw: each Blood Code functions as a swappable class with its own abilities and passive skills, and you can change between them freely at any checkpoint. Experimenting with different Blood Codes and finding synergies between their gifts (abilities) keeps the combat from settling into routine.
The story is told through memory sequences called Vestiges that reveal the backstories of fallen characters. These are more engaging than they have any right to be, with genuine pathos in several arcs. The AI companion system means you always have a partner in combat, which changes the dynamic from standard soulslike loneliness. Code Vein is not as polished as FromSoftware's output, but the character creator is deep, the build variety through Blood Codes is substantial, and the difficulty is honest.
Thymesia
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Thymesia is a short, aggressive soulslike that wears its Bloodborne influence openly and earns the comparison more often than not. You wield a saber for quick slashes and a claw for ripping plague weapons from enemies mid-combat. Each enemy type has a unique weapon you can steal and deploy as a powerful special attack, turning every new encounter into an opportunity to expand your arsenal. The plague weapon system means your toolkit is constantly evolving even within a single mission.
The game is 8-10 hours long and mission-based, which works in its favor. There is no filler. Every area is dense with enemies and minibosses that demand attention. Deflecting chains of attacks and weaving stolen plague abilities into your combos creates a flow state that Bloodborne fans will recognize immediately. The parry window is tight, the dodge has generous invincibility frames, and the overall pace is relentless. Thymesia is not trying to be a 60-hour epic. It knows exactly what it is, executes on that vision cleanly, and gets out before the formula wears thin.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the closest game to Elden Ring?
Dark Souls 3 is the closest in combat feel, since Elden Ring's systems evolved directly from it. Dragon's Dogma 2 is the closest in open world philosophy. If you want both aspects combined, Lords of the Fallen (2023) comes closest to merging soulslike combat with genuine open exploration, though it does not match FromSoftware's level of polish.
Are there any games like Elden Ring on Switch?
Blasphemous 2 is available on Switch and captures the difficulty and atmospheric storytelling in 2D. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom share the open world exploration philosophy, though the combat is much lighter. For portable soulslikes specifically, Blasphemous 2 is the strongest option on the platform.
Is Elden Ring harder than Dark Souls?
Elden Ring's hardest content (Malenia, Shadow of the Erdtree bosses) is harder than anything in Dark Souls. But the average experience is more forgiving because the open world lets you overlevel, find powerful gear, and summon spirit ashes. Dark Souls forces you through its difficulty gates in sequence with fewer tools to mitigate them.
What should I play after Elden Ring if I have never played a soulslike before?
Dark Souls 3 is the natural next step since the combat will feel immediately familiar. If Dark Souls 3's linear structure feels restrictive after Elden Ring's freedom, try Dragon's Dogma 2 for open world exploration or Lies of P for a modernized soulslike experience. Sekiro is outstanding but requires learning an entirely different combat system, so approach it when you are ready for that shift.
Do any games like Elden Ring have co-op?
Remnant 2 has the best co-op soulslike experience with three-player teams and procedurally generated content that keeps runs fresh. Dark Souls 3 has traditional Souls summoning. Outward supports two-player co-op and is arguably best experienced that way. Code Vein has a built-in AI companion plus online co-op.
Build Your Own Soulslike or Open World RPG
Playing great games is one thing. Making one is another. Summer Engine has a soulslike template with stamina-based combat, dodge rolling, lock-on targeting, and checkpoint-style respawn systems already wired up. Describe the boss you want in plain language and the AI builds it, attack patterns and all. There is also an action RPG template with an open world structure if exploration is the focus, and an open world template for building the kind of massive, seamless maps that make this genre work. AI-assisted level design tools help you create interconnected worlds without hand-placing every corridor and shortcut.
Browse all templates at summerengine.com/templates and start building.