As a regular player who has sunk more hours than I care to admit into dodging, dying, and blaming the camera, I have to say 2026 is shaping up to be the most unstable—and exciting—year for soulslikes in a long time. The rest of 2025 already set the table with Gamescom announcements, FromSoftware surprises, and betas that made my palms sweat. Now the genre feels like it’s being pulled through a taffy machine: stretched into first-person swordplay, extraction loops, and multiplayer shapes I never expected. Some games below are confirmed soulslikes; I’m leaving out action-RPG hybrids like Phantom Blade Zero and Swords of Legends, plus Black Myth: Zhong Kui because there just isn’t enough solid info yet.
🩸 Valor Mortis: A First-Person Experiment From the Ghostrunner Team
From the creators of Ghostrunner comes Valor Mortis, and it is easily one of the strangest and most pleasant surprises from Gamescom 2025. Set in an alternate 19th-century Europe where Napoleon Bonaparte rules, it trades the genre’s usual third-person fencing for a full first-person camera. For a player like me, that’s like swapping a rear-view mirror for a windshield, then realizing the road ahead is made of teeth. Combat is demanding, built around supernatural powers and a dynamic mix of melee and ranged weapons used at the same time. Valor Mortis is expected sometime in 2026.
🦇 The Duskbloods: FromSoftware Goes Full Vampire PvPvE
Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoftware dropped The Duskbloods during April’s Nintendo Direct, and my Bloodborne-starved heart nearly stopped. It has a Victorian-era gothic universe, vampiric lore, and strong Bloodborne vibes, but the real twist is the PvPvE focus after Elden Ring Nightreign. Up to eight players become Bloodsworn, exploring and fighting across vast maps. Expect challenging combat with blood-based abilities, mysterious storytelling, and the studio’s usual rewarding exploration. It is scheduled exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in 2026.
🔥 Mistfall Hunter: Extraction Soulslike With Hot-Potato Stakes
Mistfall Hunter is another PvPvE soulslike, but it leans harder into extraction. You play solo or with up to three players, grab valuable loot, and then defeat a powerful boss to extract—or lose everything. The tension feels like playing hot potato with your own inventory, except the potato is covered in boss aggro. A precision aiming system lets you chain combos and hit weak spots, and five classes—Mercenary, Sorcerer, Blackarrow, Shadowstrix, and Seer—can swap between two weapons and combine abilities with teammates. A beta happened in September 2025, and the full launch was expected later in 2025 or beyond.
🌒 Ballad of Antara: Free-to-Play, But Still Full of Bosses
Ballad of Antara sits in a strange middle ground between soulslike and traditional action game. It’s also free-to-play with multiplayer, which makes it feel closer to something like Where Winds Meet. Still, the early gameplay showed gigantic bosses, gorgeous visuals, and open levels set in otherworldly dimensions. You’ll play as different Emissaries with unique classes and specialties. It had a 2025 window, but the quiet updates make me think it slips into 2026 or later.
🕯️ Lords of the Fallen 2: Two Realms That Begin to Bleed Together
The 2023 Lords of the Fallen was a soft reboot, and now Lords of the Fallen 2 is coming as a direct sequel. The standout Umbral Lamp returns, letting players shift between the living world and the Umbral realm, but this time the two realms begin to bleed into one. That sounds like a haunted house that keeps redrawing its own floor plan while you’re still inside. Expect an expanded interconnected world, more enemy and boss variety, refined combat, and a larger weapon arsenal. It’s expected in 2026, with the PC version exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
🐚 Mortal Shell 2: Stamina Goes Out the Window
Mortal Shell 2 builds on the Harbinger idea of possessing forgotten warriors’ Shells, which can be awakened, upgraded, and switched. The big change is combat without stamina, so you’ll need to shatter enemy posture to land critical, brutal finishers. The original Hardening ability may have made fights too easy for some players, so I’m curious how the sequel solves that. Developers promise more than 60 dungeons with distinct challenges, packed into a compact interconnected world. It’s expected in 2026.
🧛 Code Vein 2: Anime Vampires With Time-Travel Powers
More than six years after the first game, Code Vein 2 returns to the anime-infused side of soulslikes. It keeps partner characters who fight alongside you, adds time-travel narrative threads, and brings time manipulation into combat. You’ll drain blood from enemies to fuel devastating vampire skills, with robust weapon and talent customization. The companion system returns with deeper emotional connections. Code Vein 2 is expected sometime in 2026.
⚔️ Nioh 3: Samurai and Ninja in One Bloody Package
Team Ninja is back with Nioh 3, and this one lets you switch between Samurai and Ninja fighting styles mid-battle to exploit yokai weaknesses—or commit to one style and become an ultimate specialist. Multiplayer includes Expeditions and a Summon Visitor mode for help from experienced players. With more open levels, a greater enemy and boss roster, and piles of gear, this is one of the most anticipated soulslikes for good reason. It’s expected to arrive in early 2026.
📋 Rapid-Fire: More Names on My Radar
There are plenty of smaller or less-confirmed projects I’m watching, too: Kaidan, Daba: Land of Water Scar, The Relic: First Guardian, Blackblade Revenant, Yuangong’s Sword Awakening, Stonemachia, and Witches of the New World. Not all of them have full details yet, but they show the genre’s heartbeat is far from slowing down.
🗺️ Quick Comparison Table
| Game | Wildest Mechanic | Target Window |
|---|---|---|
| Valor Mortis | First-person supernatural combat | 2026 |
| The Duskbloods | 8-player PvPvE Bloodsworn | 2026, Switch 2 |
| Mistfall Hunter | Extraction PvPvE with precision aiming | Late 2025/2026 |
| Ballad of Antara | Free-to-play Emissary classes | 2025/2026 |
| Lords of the Fallen 2 | Bleeding two-realm traversal | 2026 |
| Mortal Shell 2 | Stamina-free posture combat, 60+ dungeons | 2026 |
| Code Vein 2 | Time manipulation and blood-draining skills | 2026 |
| Nioh 3 | Samurai/Ninja style switching | Early 2026 |
I honestly cannot remember a stretch where so many different soulslike ideas were arriving at once. If you enjoy the genre but worry it is becoming too samey, 2026 looks like the year that particular fear gets parried.