As part of the Order of the Ashen Blade, sisters Briar and Lute arrive in the city to try and quell the disaster. They’re Chimera, a single being that houses two souls. Players control Briar, who wields a massive blade, while Lute assists in spirit form. As players discover new weapons and upgrades for Briar, they can also upgrade Lute to unlock new abilities.

What drove the sisters to become Chimera? You’ll have to play and find out. There’s a fair bit of puzzle-solving and platforming involved, not to mention boss fights against some brutal foes. For more details, check out our review for Soulstice here.

Soulstice tells the somewhat tragic tale of two sisters, Briar and Lute, fighting to close a tear in the veil; the cosmic membrane separating their world from a much more ferocious and sinister one. It’s a situation our main characters aren’t particularly surprised by, as the dastardly wraiths from the other side are known to attempt such things, but this time it’s on a much larger scale and presents an apocalyptic threat. Briar and Lute benefit from being “chimera” as in, a fusion of two souls. In their case, sisters. Lute is now a powerful ghost or “shade” that can wield all sorts of magical abilities while Briar has achieved supernatural levels of endurance and strength. Together they are quite the interdimensional force to be reckoned with, but so too is the army of monsters that await them.

"There’s just something about having a supernaturally powerful main character with a giant sword on their back that upgrades their abilities from currency earned from fighting as spectacularly as possible that just continues to endure. While Soulstice is without a doubt one of these sorts of games, I’d be lying to your face if I said it didn’t ultimately win me over with its often-superb mix of evolving old ideas and reinforcing them."

It’s a good albeit predictable tale that has our heroine duo coming across several other characters and tightly-designed areas in this gloomy, gothic world. Sometimes even coming across echoes of the past that provide some context for the story by giving you short glimpses into things that happened in any given area. These little scenes aren’t particularly expressive, but they are sufficiently harrowing, and more than get the job done of fleshing out the game’s world and breaking up the standard action game loop of tearing through enemies and exploring on your way to the next battle, and kind of remind me of talking to fallen warriors in the hall of heroes from MediEvil. I do wish that Briar and Lute were a bit more interesting themselves, especially Briar, who despite being unrelentingly cool and well designed, never really compelled me one way or another as a character.

The gameplay immediately makes it pretty clear that those who’ve ever played an action game from the PS2 or Xbox 360 eras will be right at home. A control scheme centered around light attacks with the Ashen Vindicator – Briar’s standard sword, and heavier blows from the Ashen Enforcer – a massive scythe or other weapons make a familiar set up, and as Briar’s arsenal expands, you’ll have different ways of making shorter work of monsters, but Soulstice also throws in some passive and active abilities with Lute, who can block attacks, freeze enemies, and dish out some pain of her own. Kind of like how Atreus works in God of War 2018. This is where the blending of old and new starts to show, a trend you’ll notice often in Soulstice. For starters, the often-fixed camera does relinquish control to the player, usually for the bigger fights, and then it plays more like a modern action game, but then it’s back to panning and trucking around during the platforming and exploration sections and even some battles for a more cinematic flair. This dual system creates a situation where the camera type switches around fairly often. Both systems work well enough, but the fixed angles can make platforming a bit wonky, and I can see how switching back and forth might feel jarring to some players.

You’ll probably hear people compare Soulstice’s combat to action games from the early 2000s a lot, and that’s not wrong. With Briars cartoonishly oversized sword magically resting in her back when not in use, it’s a tempting comparison to make. but when you get down to it, the individual strikes have more weight to them than that. Where action games from the early 2000s enables you to unleash flurries of attacks and barrage enemies with hyperactive nonsense, Soulstice is a little more deliberate and precise than that. Each and every strike matters – not nearly as much as they would in a Soulslike, mind you – but it still does have a knack for punishing you for too much mindless button mashing, thus forcing you to learn the ins and outs of Briars many weapons, Lute’s plethora of passive and active abilities, as well as the all-important banishment and evocation fields.

"You’ll probably hear people compare Soulstice’s combat to action games from the early 2000s a lot, and that’s not wrong."

These fields are used to great effect and make Soulstice stand apart from the crowd of hack and slash games a good bit. Controlling the blue evocation and the red banishment fields is a special ability that Lute can use to make corresponding enemies vulnerable, barriers breakable, and even reveal platforms that lead to hidden areas and items. Using them too long will hurt Lute though, which will in turn make you less lethal without her abilities for a short time, so there’s some strategy involved here.

Ultimately, the two fields mechanic isn’t that different from the multi-colored attack system of Heavenly Sword, but it’s used much more holistically throughout other facets of the game here like in exploration and puzzle solving that it frankly feels like a more organic part of this game than it did in that game. Also, a unity meter that illustrates the connection between Briar and Lute can add to the efficiency of combat and even lead to a devastating rapture state where Briar can easily tear through all enemies, fields be damned. so that’s something to keep an eye on as well. All-in-all the combat is fun to master and expand upon as new weapons and skills are added to your repertoire. All the weapons are fun to use and just different enough to make them all worth tinkering around with, although I have to admit I ended up favoring the hand of retribution probably more than I was supposed to.

Defeating enemies with quickness and purpose leads to a better score and collecting more crimson tear residue, at the end of a fight, which you can then spend on upgrades for Briar’s weapons, same for Lute with the cobalt-colored residue. I’ve got to admit I was surprised to see just how deep Lute’s move set goes, and how she can be upgraded into quite a juggernaut of her own in several different ways. Spend wisely though, as you only have the ability to buy items and skills in between levels or while talking with Layton; a traveler and observer that helps flesh out the story a little bit and also acts as the quintessential “whaddya buyin’?” character.

"Admittedly, some enjoyment of Soulstice may be gained or lost immediately depending on your personal experience with classic 3D action games."

Admittedly, some enjoyment of Soulstice may be gained or lost immediately depending on your personal experience with classic 3D action games. Soulstice proudly lives and dies by the same sword. Somebody who just got into the action genre within the last ten years or so might feel very differently about the game’s often fixed camera and highly linear layout than somebody who has fond memories of God of War 2. It’s also not helped much by some average-to-okay voice acting and writing, and the generic early 2000’s video game music is a pretty big missed opportunity as well. Still, regardless of the type of action you’re most comfortable with, Soulstice gets more than enough right with modern and classic ideas to be worth pushing through its few hang-ups.

This game was reviewed on PC.

"Soulstice is a character action game, and this genre comes with some very specific “rules”: a fast-paced and responsive combat system, combos, multiple weapons, boss fights, and so on. We meant to meet such expectations, but we also wanted to add something fresh and unique to this mix."

Soulstice’s central gameplay premise is a fascinating one, with players being tasked with controlling two characters at the same time. How did the idea for that first come about, and how challenging has it been to ensure that it’s properly executed in gameplay?

Soulstice is a character action game, and this genre comes with some very specific “rules”: a fast-paced and responsive combat system, combos, multiple weapons, boss fights, and so on. We meant to meet such expectations, but we also wanted to add something fresh and unique to this mix. That’s where our dual character system came into play. It was part of the concept from the very beginning, and the decision to involve two sisters came shortly afterwards. On the other hand, it was not a simple or a quick process to strike the proper balance between the Player’s actions (who mainly controls Briar, the Ashen Knight) and the AI-driven support of Lute, the Shade. Eventually, we decided to evolve Lute’s role as a combination of automatic actions performed by her, contextual reactions based on combat prompts, and the manual use of her blue and red fields, which make it possible to interact with certain enemies and elements in the environment.

Combining Lute and Briar’s unique abilities in combat is clearly going to be a crucial aspect of the game. Can you talk us through how the game uses the idea in terms of mechanics? For instance, is mixing and matching their abilities and experimenting with different combinations something that the game emphasizes?

It may sound like a paradox, but we felt that we wanted two characters to strengthen our single player combat experience. Lute helps Briar with counters, crowd control, defense and buffs. The Player will be able to actually “build” her in different ways, to find the setup that best matches their own playstyle. In other words, Lute helps the Player take a more proactive stance, instead of just reacting to the enemies’ actions. Moreover, if the Player manages to mix Briar’s and Lute’s abilities successfully, the sisters will gain momentum and their “Unity” will increase. A higher Unity causes Lute to become more effective, e.g. targeting multiple enemies at a time. Moreover, Unity can also trigger special “Synergy Attacks”, which cause Briar and Lute to strike together, but that’s not all. When their Unity is high enough, Briar and Let can even enter an enhanced battle trance called “Rapture”.

"It may sound like a paradox, but we felt that we wanted two characters to strengthen our single player combat experience."

What should players expect from Soulstice in terms of enemy design and variety, especially when it comes to boss fights?

This is an aspect of the game we really care about, and we have worked hard to create a diverse roster of enemies, one that could make for an engaging combat experience, throughout the whole game. Moreover, each enemy belongs to one of three different classes: the Corrupted, the Wraiths and the Possessed. The Corrupted come in different varieties, but they are always vulnerable to Briar’s attacks. Wraiths and Possessed, however, are a different story: Briar can’t actually harm them if they are not under the influence of Lute’s Evocation or Banishment Field. In particular, the (blue) Evocation Field causes invisible Wraiths to coalesce and become vulnerable, while the (red) Banishment Field is needed to face the otherwise invincible Possessed. Then again, the most powerful Possessed will release the Wraiths haunting them when defeated, and the Player will have to destroy them for good, before they have the chance to inhabit their husk again. All in all, we created an array of different elements that could work well together, and that we could mix to create interesting situations in any given battle.

In this perspective, our bosses are meant to be the proverbial icing on the cake. Each boss is going to be unique, and the battles against them always feature specific mechanics and challenges, which must be overcome in order to defeat them.

What approach does Soulstice take to its world design and exploration? How large will the city of Ilden be, and how freely will players be able to explore its environments?

The main focus of the experience is on combat, so the structure of the levels is pretty linear. There will still be some detours and secrets to find, however, as well as environmental puzzles to vary the pace of the experience. Exploration sessions are also defined by the use of some fixed cameras, which helped us give a more “cinematic” direction to the whole game, with some nice vistas of the city you are fighting your way through.

"The main focus of the experience is on combat, so the structure of the levels is pretty linear. There will still be some detours and secrets to find, however, as well as environmental puzzles to vary the pace of the experience."

How much of an emphasis will Soulstice put on its story and storytelling? What kind of a balance will it strike between its large-scale and overarching narrative elements and the more personal story of the two sisters?

As we started working on the lore of Soulstice, we gave ourselves two main rules: the most important gameplay elements should have a meaning related to the narrative, and the narrative of the game should always be consistent with the gameplay experience. In other words, we wanted to make sure that the story could be an added value to the player’s experience, rather than a distraction or a burden. That said, once we established the basics of the game, we had the opportunity to develop the story of Soulstice through different layers. One layer is about the mission that Briar and Lute have been given: the events, the characters and the challenges they must face as they try to reclaim the Sacred City of Ilden. Another layer is about what actually happened there, how the city fell to the Spawn of Chaos, and why. But there is also a third and final layer that deals with the intimate relationship between the two sisters, with the pain and the traumas they had to endure to become a Chimera. Eventually these different streams merge into one, and we hope that the Player will enjoy the narrative of Soulstice as a nice seasoning to the action-packed main course they found on the menu!

The story is set in Ilden, which has faced utter devastation following a tear in the Veil. This has led to Wraiths crossing over, possessing the living and creating corrupted monsters. It’s up to the Chimeras from the Order of the Ashen Blade, to stop them. You’ll control Briar and Lute, with the former possessing overwhelming physical strength and the latter existing as a Shade with mystical abilities.

As players progress through the city, they’ll learn that things aren’t quite what they seem. Learning new abilities, unlocking new weapons, and much more can be discovered as the duo fight to quell this disaster. Soulstice releases on September 20th – check out our preview here for more details.

Story

The story begins with Briar and Lute, sisters who have arrived in the City of Ilden after a terrible disaster. Something – or someone – caused a massive tear in the Veil, resulting in a massive incursion by the Spawn of Chaos. As Chimeras and members of the Order of the Ashen Blade, the two must fight through the hordes of Corrupted, investigate the cause of the tear, and ultimately seal it. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems, and Echoes of recent events indicate that the Order may have other plans in mind for the fallen kingdom.

Dark Fantasy Setting

As part of the Kingdom of Keidas, Ilden is described as a place where the Torchbearer shines. However, following the tear, it’s a ruined city teeming with horrors. While Soulstice doesn’t go full-on cosmic horror like Bloodborne, it’s still pretty dark, both in subject matter and mood lighting. Lots of dead civilians, gore, and hints of a tragic backstory for the sisters are just a few things to expect.

The environments are also pretty varied, starting out at the ruined docks, transitioning to the streets, through a tower and prison, and so on. Though somewhat linear in the early going, subsequent areas open up a bit more, providing other rooms to explore, secrets to discover and resources to loot. The camera is positioned statically while exploring, changing angles when moving out of frame a la the older Resident Evil titles (and even shifting to a side-scrolling perspective in some platforming sections like NieR: Automata). In combat, the camera can be moved, providing a better sense of the battlefield.

Cast

Players control Briar, who is the standoffish powerhouse of the duo is is struggling to contain the Corruption within her. Perhaps it’s due to how Chimeras are created (not unlike the Youma in manga/anime Claymore), but one thing is for sure – letting it overtake her can result in Lute being lost. As for Lute, she sacrificed her body and bound her soul to her sister as a Shade. Capable of sensing disturbances in the Veil and providing back-up in a myriad of ways, Lute has her own emotional baggage.

Throughout their conversations and random remarks, you’re able to glean more about their dynamic – how much they care for each other, and what events led to their current predicament. There’s also the Observer, Layton, a mysterious figure serving the Order who provides items to buy, and can upgrade abilities for both sisters. Arrogant at times, exasperated at others but mysterious all the while, he also doles out orders and comments on the situation. Other characters pop up during the story, including Donovan, a powerful Chimera who doesn’t use his Shade to fight (for various reasons).

Not a Soulslike

The name may make you think otherwise but just a few seconds of combat should make it obvious – Soulstice isn’t a Souls-like. Its gameplay takes heavy cues from Nier: Automata, though combat is melee-focused. You can chain together light attack and heavy attack combos, and launch enemies into the air. Briar can also dash, both on the ground and in mid-air, while Lute is responsible for disrupting enemies.

The latter can outright repel melee attacks, slow enemies, stop projectiles from reaching her sister, and much more. She can also attack foes with automatic ranged blasts and slashes. You’ll need to carefully time Lute’s disruption abilities though, and things can get fairly chaotic when facing multiple enemies at a time. However, things quickly settle into a nice rhythm and the controls are very smooth throughout.

Unity

As Briar and Lute attack enemies, they start building up Unity, as represented by the icon in the upper right corner. Unity provides multiple benefits, like allowing Lute to fire two additional energy blasts. However, it also lets you unleash Briar’s Synergy Attacks – powerful moves with cinematic angles great for knocking back or outright killing enemies around you. Taking damage or being knocked back causes Unity to decrease, so you’ll have to balance between being aggressive or defensive when the situation calls for it.

Evocation and Banishment Fields

Eventually, you’ll come across Cobalt Veins and Crystal Overgrowths, the former being blue and the latter red. These require Lute to activate an Evocation or Banishment Field to destroy them, though they must remain in the field’s range. Keeping a field active generates Entropy and when the max is reached, Lute will vanish for a short period of time. Things get especially dicey when dealing with blue and red enemies – they can only be damaged when the field of their corresponding color is active.

Of course, you’ll also encounter some platforms and puzzles that require switching between the fields, and they provide a good break to all of the slashing. There are also Motherlodes, large chunks of blue crystals, which must be destroyed with combos and provide Cobalt Tear Residue for unlocking Lute’s abilities. Red crystals also appear throughout, which provide Crimson Residue for buying items from Layton and unlocking new weapon abilities for Briar.

Rapture

At a certain point in the story, Rapture is unlocked. Think of this as your Spartan Rage button, as Briar harnesses the Corrupted power within her to go ballistic on her enemies. Rapture attacks can damage all foes, even those that require an Evocation or Banishment Field. Activating it again unleashes a super-powerful attack to damage remaining enemies, and the overall power showcase is pretty awesome (techno music notwithstanding). The drawback of Rapture is that it decreases Unity significantly, but that’s easy enough to build back up over time.

Weapons

Initially, Briar has access to only two weapons – the Ashen Vindicator, which is a quick striking weapon (ironically so, given its size), and the Ashen Enforcer, a hard-hitting but slower weapon. Eventually, she receives the Hand of Retribution, a powerful gauntlet that can uppercut foes, parry attacks, and so on. Each weapon is effective against different types of foes – the Ashen Enforcer is good against flying enemies while the Hand of Retribution is better at stripping armor. Though the Ashen Vindicator remains equipped at all times, one can switch between their equipped secondary weapons in combat.

Weapon Abilities

Once again, if you’re familiar with NieR: Automata, then a lot of the weapon abilities will look familiar. Along with the Stinger-esque Piercing Lunge for the Ashen Vindicator, you have the Ashen Enforcer’s Arching Onslaught, which is a charged attack for knocking back foes. You can also launch foes with the Enforcer and smash them back down. It’s all fairly straightforward but Synergy Attacks and transitioning into a different weapon ability at the end of a combo provides some variety.

Lute’s Upgrades

But it doesn’t stop there as Lute has her own dedicated skill trees for Offense, Defense, Fields and Rapture. You could unlock the ability to disrupt stronger foes, decrease Entropy when slaying enemies while a field is active, unleash an explosive blast when overcharged, and much more. Best of all, abilities can be respecced if you want to try out different choices.

Enemy Types and Bosses

The Spawn of Chaos are a wily bunch, throwing everything from fodder to powerful Wraiths and Possessed at the sisters, oftentimes in overwhelming numbers. Things start out simply enough with Corrupted humans, though spear-wielding and armored heavy-sword users quickly enter the fray. Eventually, you’ll fight Wraiths, who can only be damaged inside of an Evocation Field. The Possessed require a Banishment Field to deal damage, and include quick-moving Slashers. We won’t spoil any of the boss fights but one of them is a Possessed with multiple different stages and mechanics that are challenging but fun to fight through.

Challenge the Void

Throughout the journey, there will also be special portals that lead to Void Challenges. Each has a unique objective to complete, from executing Perfect Counters or slaying all foes before the timer runs out, and provide rewards upon completion. Void Challenges can be played outside of the main campaign as well, if you fancy a higher score.

Difficulty Options

Soulstice provides five difficulty options – Human, Initiate, Knight, Chimera and Transcended. Human is the easiest and ideal for someone who just wants to enjoy the story while Initiate is a more balanced experience that still provides a decent challenge. Knight is where things get a bit more hairy, while Chimera and Transcended are the two toughest and must be unlocked. Chapter Selection allows for experiencing each difficulty separately (though save data for the current chapter is wiped). Besides a few key mechanics like Rapture, character progression and currency is shared between all difficulties. It’s great for those seeking a tougher challenge to unleash all of their abilities on from the outset.

Accessibility

A wealth of accessibility options are also available, from text size, font style and subtitles background to colorblind modes for Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia. One can also adjust screen shake, toggle gameplay assists like Auto Combat, Auto Fields and Auto Counter, enable the option to pause the game when opening the Inventory, and use only one button press for completing special events and QTEs. It’s a nice set of options to have in addition to rebinding controls.

While most developers are trying to cash in on the popularity of these new-found mechanics with run-of-the-mill action games, others such as Reply Game Studios are looking back to the (arguably) glorious past with Soulstice – an action game that’s trying to replicate the magic of Nier with a few neat tricks of its own. While we are still some ways off from its imminent release, Soulstice is certainly shaping up to be one of the more unique and interesting experiences that 2022 may end up offering.

Soulstice sees players controlling two protagonists linked by a soul chain – namely Briar and Lute. You see, Soulstice is set against the backdrop of the dark fantasy kingdom of Keidas. As fate would have it, a calamity strikes the kingdom as otherworldly creatures known as Wraiths crumble and occupy this once glorious castle. The Wraiths are known to come from the other side of Veil, which we are assuming to be a portal between two worlds. Briar and Lute now have to rise to the call of duty, since the two conjoined sisters seemingly have the might and power required to shun these baddies from their home. The two warriors will embark on a quest that will take them throughout this vast and crumbled kingdom as they try to better understand their purpose of existence.

While the story certainly looks to be pretty heavy in its concepts, with proper nomenclature for races and otherworldly creatures – Soulstice doesn’t seem to be adamant over hammering an intricate story that’s filled to the brim with plot revelations and layered characters. In that sense, Soulstice seems to be a bit like Nier as it seems to be favoring style over substance; albeit much darker in its concept and much less flavourful and funny in its dialogue. While it’s still early days to pass on a judgment like that, the focus on keeping narrative distractions to a minimum could actually work very well in Soulstice’s favor.

Now let’s talk about the gameplay. Soulstice’s brand of action relies heavily around unleashing a flurry of combos upon your adversaries, and it’s looking really promising to say the very least. Reply Game Studios has really nailed the feeling of being a nimble warrior that can chop down foes in moments unnoticed. And to add to that, the dual protagonist structure holds interesting ramifications in the combat – as the two serve distinct purposes that all connect together to craft a complex web of systems that comprise Soulstice’s combat system. Briar will primarily use her swords to pummel down enemies with a fast rush of attacks while Lute will play the support as she deals ranged damage and casts down spells to keep approaching enemies at bay. Briar can wield multiple weapons in her arsenal – ranging from a greatsword to a bow to an axe and much more. Each weapon will feature its own distinct combos to learn, and additionally – players can switch between equipped weapons mid-combo to achieve some rather fantastic results.

A Unity meter keeps track of the harmony between the two sisters during combat and it’s important that players fill the meter as soon as possible. As the Unity multiplier increases, Lute’s support abilities start becoming more and more useful as she gains the ability to target more enemies. And once the Unity meter fills up to a certain point, you can enter a frenzied Rapture state – which is essentially a rage mode where you have increased speed and damage for a short period of time to give you an edge over your enemies in combat.

Reply Game Studios seems to have crafted an excellent combat system that plays very well to its strengths, while also allowing a fair deal of freedom in how players choose to approach encounters to have an element of personal expression within the combat. Of course, a fleshed-out combat system wouldn’t be of much use if there weren’t an interesting cast of enemies to fight, but thankfully Soulstice seems to have nailed this aspect of the experience as well, with enemies ranging from cannon fodder to mini-bosses that require very special tactics to beat.

For instance, there are the Wraiths – creatures made of an ethereal material that cannot be damaged until Lute casts a very specific spell and Briar reaches within close proximity to them. Then there are the Possessed, which as the name suggests – have been possessed by Wraiths and are invulnerable to attacks in their normal form. To even stand a chance at defeating them, players will once again have to take help from Lute by casting a limited-time spell and separating the host and the parasite – then kill the parasite in that form to defeat it. It’s all on top of your usual boss encounters, which if the normal encounters are anything to go by – would be ruthless tests of a player’s skill level.

Now let’s also briefly talk about the presentation. As mentioned before, Soulstice is set in the crumbling remains of Keidas – and this dilapidated kingdom looks absolutely gorgeous. The enemy designs are striking from a design perspective with varied armor designs and weapon looks. That said, the texture work and asset quality aren’t as detailed as many upcoming details – although that’s most likely an artistic choice since the character models are a mix of cartoony and realistic. Additionally, the game’s many levels also feature varied environments that players would need to explore in search of the many weapons and abilities that will provide you an edge in combat. Much like NieR: Automata, Soulstice also features a 2D platforming section to provide for some variety between action sequences. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the punchy soundtrack that’s composed of electronic music which seems to be a perfect match for some fast-paced action.

Soulstice is set to release on 20th September, 2022 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. And while the choice to restrict the game to current-gen console hardware (which might I add is still very tough to find) might prove detrimental to the game’s sales potential, Soulstice could still end up being a massive hit if it manages to deliver on its promise of adrenaline-pumping and bombastic fast-paced action with a well-realized dark fantasy setting. With direct competition nowhere to be found, Soulstice is fortunately enough – set to enjoy a big space in the spotlight. Should Reply Game Studios play their cards right, Soulstice could end up being one of the biggest surprise hits of the year.

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.