VG Insights: Souls-like games on PC and Consoles
Interesting insights of the genre, that is becoming increasingly hard to properly identify.
The report is based on VGI data starting from January 2015. All figures are estimates. The report was published in October 2025.
Market overview of Souls-like games
The popularity of Souls-like games on Steam steadily increased until 2024. In 2024, 371 projects (+41% YoY) with the souls-like tag were released on Steam. Over the first 10 months of 2025, 207 games with the same tag were released on Steam, roughly in line with 2022-2023 levels.
Black Myth: Wukong (20.3 million copies on Steam), Elden Ring (15.6 million copies), and Monster Hunter: World (13 million copies) are the top three projects with the souls-like tag on Steam. Whether Monster Hunter: World should be classified as a Souls-like game remains an open question.
VG Insights notes that interest from AA and AAA publishers in the genre has remained roughly stable over the past five years. Growth in the number of Souls-like projects is primarily driven by indie developers.
By 2024, AAA developers accounted for roughly 75% of total Souls-like revenue on Steam. However, the year-to-year picture is not stable, as successful AA and indie releases can significantly shift revenue distribution within a given year.
At this point, Souls-like games appear to have gone through a rapid growth phase (2015-2018), reached a peak (2019), experienced a downturn (2020-2021), and have since become a mainstream genre (from 2022 onward).
Currently, around 4-5% of all games released on Steam are Souls-like games, or at least carry the corresponding tag.
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Best-selling Souls-like projects
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the best-selling game in the genre according to VG Insights. Total sales since launch are estimated at 41.3 million copies.
The “copies sold” figure also includes distribution via subscription services.
Elden Ring ranks second with 40.6 million copies sold, followed by Monster Hunter: World in third place with 35 million copies.
The list also includes Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cuphead. In my view, both have a weak connection to the Souls-like genre.
39% of Elden Ring sales came from Steam, 40% from PlayStation, and 21% from Xbox.
China is the largest regional market for the game, accounting for 25% of all purchases. The US ranks second with 23%, and Germany third with 5%.
The average playtime per user in Elden Ring is 121.8 hours, which is an extremely high number. The share of positive user reviews stands at 92.9%.
46% of all copies of the project were sold on Steam, 40% on Xbox (most likely via Game Pass), and 14% on PlayStation.
China accounts for 72% of all copies sold. The launch was, to put it mildly, not very successful, with only 49.5% positive reviews. That said, average playtime remains fairly high at 28.8 hours.
72% of Hollow Knight: Silksong sales at the time of writing came from Steam, 9% from PlayStation, and 19% from Xbox (again, most likely due to Xbox Game Pass).
China (24% of the audience), the US (18%), and Russia (7%) are the key regions for the project.
As of writing, 7.8 million players have downloaded the game. Average playtime is 25.5 hours, and the share of positive reviews is 81.4%.
Souls-like games by region
As of 2025, APAC is the key region for the genre. Developers from this region released 80% of all projects and account for 97% of total revenue.
US developers performed well in 2022-2023, but Asian developers quickly reclaimed leadership.
Japanese developers are the most successful among Souls-like developers. The leading companies are Bandai Namco and Capcom.
On PlayStation, the ranking includes God of War (2018) and Ghost of Tsushima. In my view, neither project should be classified as Souls-like.
Xbox shows the most diverse lineup of Souls-like projects. This is largely due to Game Pass, as users can try new projects within the subscription.
Chinese players are the core audience for Souls-like projects.
Looking at the audience of the top 20 Souls-like projects on Steam, 47% of players are from China. The US ranks second with 23%. Germany (5%) and Russia (5%) share third place.
Pricing strategy for Souls-like games
Most AAA projects in the genre launched on Steam at prices between $39.99 and $69.99.
