Horizon Zero Dawn Meets Dark Souls in Ambitious New RPG

This upcoming action-adventure soulslike is promising big things (like, for instance, massive alien spiders).

If you ever wanted to take the soulslike formula of Dark Souls and implant it into the futuristic, sci-fi world of Horizon Zero Dawn, then congrats; that game already exists, and it’s called The Surge 2... and also AI LIMIT... and I guess Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order probably counts too.

Okay, well, if you want a new sci-fi soulslike, then look no further than today’s example: The Night Wanderer, an upcoming title developed and published by Mighty Koi.

Mighty Koi are certainly taking a pretty big swing at the soulslike formula with this one, because the first time developer is promising something frankly unbelievable with this game. According to them, The Night Wanderer is a "groundbreaking RPG and soulslike fusion", with metroidvania-style level design and a "lightning-paced combat system".

Of course, for the time being, we only really have their word to go off of for now. There isn’t a shred of gameplay footage to find from the game (that I could find, at least), although they did release a cinematic trailer back in March 2024.

The trailer does give us a glimpse into the game's story though, as well as a look at the "omnipresent AI companion" that will be guiding the player through the missions. Vuko, The Night Wanderer's protagonist, is supported by an artificial intelligence named Cyphral.

Cyphral has decided to take the form of Vuko’s dead wife, for some reason, which I’m sure is super healthy and definitely won’t have any kind of terrible emotional effects on the protagonist throughout the course of the story.

If you’re already feeling keen to try this one out, then you may want to brace yourself for a bit of a long wait.

The Night Wanderer currently doesn’t have a release date, nor any sort of indication of what year the developers are targeting. They have, however, stated that it will be coming to PlayStation 5, PC, and both Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X when it does eventually drop. Hopefully, they’re planning to release some kind of gameplay trailer to tide us over during the wait.

In the meantime, though, you could certainly do a lot worse than The Surge 2 if you’re desperately craving a sci-fi soulslike.

After all, you could play The Surge 1 instead (this joke is funny because that game is bloody terrible).