"Souls-like" games have been popular in the gaming industry for a while, so much so that what was once a niche genre has suddenly become saturated.Even if this is the case, this type of game can still be successful, such as the recent "Ming Dynasty: Yuanxu Yuzhi", which hit an online peak of 131,000 on Steam.

However, more and more developers are trying to distance themselves from the genre.For example, Niba Entertainment is dissatisfied with "Silent Hill F" being labeled as "Souls-like".This attitude is understandable considering the large number of similar titles released on Steam every year.

According to a study by VG Insights, the number of games with the "Souls-like" tag on Steam has increased by 4100% since 2015, which is an increase of approximately 41.2 times.In 2024 alone, 371 new games on the Steam platform were labeled as Soulslike by developers or fans.By comparison, there were only nine such games on Steam in 2015, showing that the genre has experienced exponential growth.

The research also revealed more interesting data: "Souls-like" games currently launched by AAA publishers account for two-thirds of the latest games, and before 2022, the dominant players will still be AAA publishers.

In addition, the Asia-Pacific region will account for 60% of these games in 2024, and 80% of new soul games on Steam this year will also come from the Asia-Pacific region.Unsurprisingly, the majority of consumers are also from the region, accounting for 97% of Souls game sales in 2025, up from 81% last year.

Users in China and the United States are the largest consumers of Souls-like games, with "Black Myth: Wukong" becoming the best-selling Souls-like game on Steam in the past decade.

There is no doubt about the dominance of this genre, but with the return of action games such as "Shadow Blade: Zero" and the number of new "Souls-like" games dropping to 207 this year, this market saturation is beginning to gradually weaken.