What’s interesting is that Code Vein didn’t just reskin the Souls formula with anime aesthetics (like 2025’s AI Limit); it actively rethought how many of the genre’s core ideas could function through an overtly narrative-driven lens. From its emphasis on party members and personal bonds to its unusually flexible build system and story-integrated mechanics, the game helps players connect with characters and the world, not just through item descriptions, but dialogue and scenes. We’re closely approaching a sequel in Code Vein II and have seen other anime adjacent soulslikes pop up. AI Limit was on my top 10 favorite games of 2025 list at number 10, but was much more traditional in its soulslike approach than Code Vein. We still haven’t seen another game quite like Code Vein in the soulslike genre, so let’s explore what makes it so special, especially for its time.

Code Vein does quite a lot of things traditional Soulslikes don’t do, but a character creator ain’t one of them. Still, upon first booting up the game, we were all bamboozled with one of the absolute most in-depth character creators in gaming at for the time. You can mold your character’s facial features through a huge selection of sliders and dress them up in a wide assortment of clothing and accessories. But it’s the ability to place these, oftentimes wild, accessories on any location of your character that sets it apart. The UI is also strikingly good, with plenty of background lighting and camera options to customize your character to. This first impression of Code Vein’s customization is more than just cosmetic though, it’s a preview of the game’s overall flexibility, which extends directly into its build system.

You might be asking why such an intricate character creator is even worth mentioning. Well, Code Vein is one of a vanishingly small number of games in its genre to feature a photo mode. And it’s a robust one at that. The photo mode is so feature-rich that it eclipses the editing software that came with my old Sony camera. You’ve got a bounty of fun and novel filters to play with, including my absolute favorite, a pixelated filter that turns any screenshot into a super Nintendo game. There’s also 37 frames and the camera features you’d typically expect like tilt, depth of field, exposure, film grain, etc. For the time, it was also the only soulslike where you could pause during combat, using photo mode to do so, of course.

Code Vein’s almost limitless sense of personalization continues directly into gameplay. You unlock passive and active abilities and techniques through Blood Codes, which function as pre-set builds. The cool thing is you can mix and abilities across blood codes after getting proficient in that particular ability. If you don’t want to craft your own build, you can just equip your preset blood code and you’re good to go, and with over 35 of them to collect, you have lots to choose from. What’s really cool is that each character in the game is represented by their own unique Blood Code. So if you want to play like one of your teammates, or even opponents including bosses, you can.

The fun thing is that Code Vein ties every gameplay mechanic into story in rather clever ways. Blood Codes, for example, are often gifted to you after reaching a certain bond level with a character, reinforcing the feeling that your power comes from shared experiences (insert power through friendship meme). Your role as a special Revenant allows you to ‘absorb’ other Revenant’s Blood Codes. And of course, blood is a vital theme within the game as a whole. Your ‘armor’ and secondary weapon is known as a blood veil, which itself is used to drain ichor using vampire-like fangs. And the game’s denizens, Revenants, each have parasites living in their heart which helps bring them back to ‘life’ upon death, also determining their signature blood code.

Yeah, the lore goes pretty deep, doesn’t it? There’s plenty of it to unpack and discover through the main story, but there’s also numerous side stories and character backstories to explore on top of that. Unlike a majority of soulslikes, Code Vein has a wide cast of characters that can be brought with you into battle as party members. They gather in a dedicated hub area, which gets expanded and added on as you play. Your companions also expand with new dialogue after key story beats. From a gameplay perspective, this allows you to approach Code Vein like a party-based RPG, or tackle it solo for an added challenge. Narratively, it opens the door to extensive backstory. Each character has a shockingly in-depth backstory that can be experienced through memory vignettes. Again, this is all tied into the rich lore of the game in a way that more or less makes sense given the rules of the setting. These memory sequences are collected through Memory Echoes and Vestiges, and there’s a crap-ton of them throughout the game, well over 100 in fact. While the slow walking can be tedious, especially on New Game+ runs, their presentation is undeniably striking.

That presentation ties directly into Code Vein’s music and art direction. Memory sequences are accompanied by elegant, emotional piano pieces and depicted in stark black-and-white scenes using claymation-like figures and animations. It’s a storytelling method unlike anything else in the genre. Code Vein’s memory sequences are a powerful narrative tool that manages to show us what the villains went through before being corrupted, humanizing them in the process. The dramatic voice acting and stirring score are the cherry on top. The story in general is presented through cutscenes, something soulslikes shy away from given their typical show-don’t-tell approach to narrative. Code Vein is different, leaning into flashy cinematics and emotional character outbursts. That anime souls approach may not be for everybody, but man did Code Vein knock it out of the park.

It’s not any single element of Code Vein that continues to impress me, but how all of these elements are synthesized into a cohesive whole. I often hear about how fun the combat in Code Vein is or how cool the anime art is, but the brilliant gameplay/story integration is often overlooked.  Gameplay and art alone wouldn’t make the game stand out in an increasingly crowded genre. What elevates Code Vein is how intentionally its systems reinforce one another, all in service of its themes.

As more Soulslikes experiment with anime aesthetics, cinematic storytelling, or companion-driven design, it’s becoming increasingly clear just how ahead of the curve Code Vein was. Not every experiment landed perfectly, and its tone won’t resonate with everyone, but its ambition is undeniable. Rather than dilute the Souls formula, Code Vein reframed it, proving that there’s room in the genre for melodrama, overt emotion, and more generous gameplay systems than the Dark Souls and Khazans of the world.

As we look toward Code Vein II, it’ll be interesting to see how the studio leans into the first game’s strengths. Not just going bigger with its spectacle or prettier with the anime aesthetic, but honing in on the gameplay/story integration and character focus.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Mass Effect 1 – Mako Segments

Mass Effect’s first outing laid the foundation for what would end up becoming one of the most beloved sci-fi RPG trilogies of all time, but even those who swear by the franchise will tell you that the Mako segments are easily the game’s most off-putting mandatory sections. On paper, cruising across alien planets in a six-wheeled all-terrain tank sounds like a thrilling opportunity to explore strange landscapes and uncover hidden secrets. But in execution, the driving experience turns into a bumpy nightmare in the face of weird controls and awkward handling. The Mako handles like a bouncy toy through and through, ricocheting off the slightest hill and sliding around at every slope. It also doesn’t help that most planets you explore are barren with little variety between them and the enemy encounters presnet within. And when mission objectives force you into these segments repeatedly, it becomes painfully clear they were more ambitious than polished. They can break the narrative flow, drag the pacing down, and leave anyone dreading the next time the game says, “Time to deploy the Mako.”

30. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Don’t Nod’s second major action RPG, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden was released early last year, and it turned out to be a way better experience than Vampyr. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden was an excellent action role playing game with plenty to do with story being its main focus. Throughout the game’s narrative, players would have to make tough decisions which can result in any of the five endings.

According to Yoshida, Sony had expressed an interest in working with FromSoftware on a sequel to Demon’s Souls. The developer chose to instead go with Bandai Namco for the game, which would eventually become Dark Souls.

“FromSoftware was already working on the sequel, but they were so disappointed with how PlayStation treated them. We wanted to work with them again but they passed on it,” said Yoshida, who went on to speak fondly about series director Hidetaka Miyazaki.

“We have huge respect for Miyazaki, and we were able to work with them again,” Yoshida said. “Bloodborne is one of his best games.”

In previous interviews, he admitted that he thought that the game would be bad based on the time he spent with a pre-release build of Demon’s Souls.

“For my personal experience with Demon’s Souls, when it was close to final, I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game,” said Yoshida in a 2012 interview with Game Informer. “I said: ‘This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game.’ So I put it aside.”

He spoke about the fact that Atlus and Bandai Namco were able to help make Demon’s Souls a successful release even outside of Japan, where the title was published by Sony.

“Luckily, third-party publishers, Atlus in North America and Namco in Europe [stepped in], and it really became a great hit outside of Japan,” he said at the time. “We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including the studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making.”

Yoshida has revealed many details about his time with Sony since leaving the company last month. In the same interview, he also spoke about the death of Japan Studio being caused by the market for smaller-scale AA titles disappearing.

“Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller double-A sized group, and the market became really difficult for these kinds of games,” said Yoshida. “For example, after Gravity Rush 2, [director Keiichiro Toyama] tried to come up with a new concept, but we were not able to greenlight any of his new concepts, even though they were really interesting.”

He also spoke about how he was moved from heading first-party studios to working with indie developers to help them bring their games to Sony’s console. “Well, I had no choice,” said Yoshida of the time, with his only other option being to leave the company.

Yoshida left PlayStation back in January after having spent 31 years with the company. He has been credited as an executive producer on titles like Ape Escape, The Legend of Dragoon, and Gran Turismo.

Why is this happening? It’s due to the influence of the Nightlord – the big bad players must survive three days and three nights in Limveld to slay. Since the region is an alternate universe to Elden Ring’s Limgrave, it appears that anything goes.

While FromSoftware didn’t outright confirm which enemies are appearing, fans have spotted The Nameless King and his Stormdrake from Dark Souls 3 and what may be the Centipede Demon from Dark Souls. The Duke’s Dear Freja from Dark Souls 2 could also be the massive spider seen in an official image.

We’ll need to wait and see for ourselves, but fans can go hands-on with the co-op title sooner rather than later. A network test for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 is coming in February 2025. Registrations begin next month, so stay tuned.

Elden Ring Nightreign will launch next year and is also coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It won’t feature cross-play or support for Duos.

DEAD RISING 2

Capcom brought Dead Rising back earlier this year with Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster earlier this year, which was a remake in nearly all but name, and we’d love for the company to do the same with Dead Rising 2. Whether or not that happens will, of course, depend entirely on whether the aforementioned Deluxe Remaster’s commercial performance matches the critical acclaim it enjoyed, but our hope is that it does, not only because it would mean more Dead Rising, but also because we’d love to play an enhanced form of Dead Rising 2, an excellent game in its own right.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Kojima Productions delivered one of the best stealth experiences of recent memory with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. The game meshes together a great story filled with underlying themes along with an open world that’s quite literally a playground of possibilities. It’s one of the best games that use the concept of systemic world design to the fullest extent, and it’s really fun to bend these systems to your will and come up with interesting solutions to a variety of problems.

The game starts out really strong, and Kojima ensures gradual progression as new tools start to open up and missions get more complex with new enemy types and labyrinthian designs – forcing you to use everything in your arsenal to get through it all. But once you get past Mission 31, you notice that the “new missions” are actually just rehashed older missions with new mission clear constraints tacked on top for good measure. It’s still fun to clear out these missions, but stripping away the freedom to cause chaos can also turn some people off – and that coupled with the fact that it’s all essentially rehashed content built to pad out the game can tamper with the enjoyment.

It was a magical time when Halo, Gears of War, and Forza had multiple follow-ups and extensive respect. Even before Microsoft slowed down on the exclusives and delved further into Kinect, the Xbox 360 generation offered some legendary releases. Here are our picks for the top 15, as of 2024.

Grand Theft Auto 4

Going from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Grand Theft Auto 4 on a new generation of consoles wasn’t easy for Rockstar. However, while the latter had its shortcomings, it’s still a phenomenal entry in the series, with Niko Bellic’s rise through crime showcased in grim, unrelenting fashion. Its improvements to character models and motion capture, the sheer amount of dialogue, the increased scale of Liberty City, and more all made for an incredible sequel.

Phalanx Colossus Battle – Shadow of the Colossus

When we think of giant boss battles, Shadow of the Colossus usually comes to mind first. The only surprising thing about this entry is the specific colossus chosen. Sure, the final Malus colossus stands out as the culmination of Wander’s journey, but we’ve got to give it to the flying Phalanx. Just look at the size of this majestic colossus in comparison to all the other colossi in the game. Its length grasps the edges of any photo it’s in, taking up more mileage than all the other colossi by a considerable margin. And let’s not forget that you’re taking down this colossus, like the rest, all alone using a magical sword and some remarkable climbing ability. The fight itself remains one of the most memorable in gaming as you fly atop the giant flying serpent in battle. Malus may be the tallest and final boss of the game, but Phalanx remains the most memorable and awe-inspiring.

Jak and Daxter trilogy

To break away from the linear storytelling in prior triumvirate Crash Bandicoot, Naughty Dog developed a new graphics engine capable of rendering seamlessly connected open environments rife for joyful exploration for their Jak and Daxter trilogy. Ostensibly a third-person action platformer, the series also featured excellent combat and movement mechanics underpinned by the Eco system – a substance that can dramatically enhance player abilities; move sets which became increasingly complex and satisfying as the trilogy progressed.