Soulslikes Don’t Work in First-Person — Yet
Valor Mortis, a recently released game, attempts to bring the Soulslike formula to a first-person perspective—a rare combination that has traditionally been reserved for certain shooter subgenres. According to a Polygon review, while the game includes signature Soulslike mechanics such as high difficulty and the punishing “lose your experience points on death” system, it struggles to fully translate the distinctive combat experience of the Soulslike genre into first-person perspective.
The reviewer, a longtime Soulslike enthusiast since playing Bloodborne in 2015, approached Valor Mortis—which features challenging encounters against plague-infected soldiers in a Napoleonic setting—with high expectations. However, after spending time with the game, they concluded that the first-person viewpoint doesn’t quite capture what makes Soulslikes compelling. While the mechanical foundations of difficulty and resource management are present, something essential about the Soulslike experience appears to be lost in translation.
The article highlights fundamental limitations inherent to combining first-person perspective with Soulslike design, suggesting that the camera angle may be incompatible with the genre’s core appeal. This raises broader questions about whether certain game design philosophies are fundamentally tied to specific perspectives, and whether attempting to hybridize genres can sometimes result in a diminished experience for players familiar with the traditional format.