Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is the first Soulslike in a while to grab my attention

Confession time: I’m not big on Dark Souls-esque games, better known as “Soulslikes.”

While I respect the steep difficulty levels and accompanying sense of satisfaction in overcoming them, I generally just don’t enjoy dying over and over again. (Bloodborne is the only one that truly clicked with me; it’s still the GOAT.) It doesn’t help that it feels like we get a new Soulslike every week, further tiring me on them.

Therefore, what I really for are interesting twists on the Soulslike formula, like how Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi games push for approachability while putting a greater emphasis on narrative, platforming and Metroidvania-style progression. Now, after playing 30 minutes of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn — the latest Soulslike from Ashen developer A44 Games — at Summer Game Fest, I can say it’s also clicking with me for the little twists it’s offering. In fact, A44 is even calling this a ‘Soulslite,’ which I’d agree with so far.

First, it’s the setting. With so many Souls games focused on traditional fantasy, including Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, I appreciate that Flintlock, as its title suggests, places a heavy emphasis on European-style firearms. Admittedly, the story — in which elite soldier Nor and her fox-like companion have to defeat the Gods and their armies of the dead — sounds like pretty traditional fantasy fare, and my demo didn’t give me a feel for whether there’s more to that.

But it’s that “magic meets gunpowder” premise that makes for a more visually and mechanically distinct experience. Maybe it’s my predilection for pirate-themed media, but I just really vibe with all of the different kinds of flintlocks that Nor can use in between the more standard melee attacks. These guns help restore Nor’s armour while providing a welcome ranged layer to combat and maintaining balance thanks to relatively limited ammo. There’s also a white-knuckle feeling to loading up a cannon-like gun and blasting away a charging enemy at the last second.

I also just dig the feel of the game. Soulslikes often feel rather slow and clunky to me, especially in their “circle around an enemy, block, attack and repeat” rhythm. In Flintlock, however, Nor can hop, double jump and dash around, providing the gameplay with a satisfying level of agility. It’s what I loved most about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice without that game’s punishing level of difficulty. (You can tweak the difficulty settings in Flintlock, which is already a major deviation from many Soulslikes.)

Meanwhile, the combat has that tight over-the-shoulder perspective that, when paired with the punchy axe-based attacks, draws favourable comparisons to Santa Monica Studio’s stellar God of War games. For the purposes of the demo, we were set to the easier difficulty, which refreshingly made it feel more like a God of War-style action game in terms of difficulty than something as overtly tough as a Soulslike.

Finally, there’s a bit of a platforming element to Flintlock. With your fox companion, you can zip between magical portals to ascend higher places. In the demo, it was pretty on rails, just taking me through a riverside canyon, but it’s undeniably flashy, and I hope that we see it expand for some thrilling navigational moments later on. To that point, the latest trailer shows Nor launching out of a portal to do a ground-pound on an enemy, so that’s promising, at least.

Big questions remain, however, regarding Flintlock‘s open-world, which I didn’t get to experience in the demo. At this point, I’m fairly tired of open-world games (not everything needs to be this!), so I need to see more. A44 is at least teasing some degree of reactivity — for example, killing enemies in one village might open up a series of sidequests — which has potential. Likewise, I want to see more of the story. A big reason why the Star Wars Jedi games speak to me is that they make you care about the characters, which adds even more reward for pushing through the often challenging combat. Hopefully, Nor and the supporting cast prove interesting.

We’ll learn more when Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC on July 18th. The game will also be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one, making it absolutely worth checking out for subscribers, if nothing else. A free demo is also currently available on Steam.

Image credit: Kepler Interactive