Deadliest Alien Parasites, Ranked

One of the greatest examples of nature's cruelty you can find is the existence of parasites. Parasitism is a relationship between two species in which one benefits by harming the other. The one that is being harmed is usually referred to as the host. This is distinct from predation, wherein one species eats another as a food source. A predator will consume what it needs to and then moves on. A parasite will remain tied to its host as long as possible in order to exploit them.

Parasitic organisms can be found in all four biological kingdoms and live in every conceivable biome. They come in many different forms. There are parasitic birds, perhaps most famously the cuckoo, that sneak their eggs into other nests. The Last of Us was inspired by the real-life Cordyceps, a fungus that zombifies insects. Mistletoe survives by stealing nutrients from trees. Anglerfish developed a form of parasitic reproduction where males are permanently fused into the female's body. 

A male anglerfish is permanently infused to a female's body, acting as a parasite by stealing nutrients from anything she eats.
Original photo by Edith A. Widdler

The abundance of parasites has even created its own ecological niche. Several species of fish effectively exploit the existence of parasites by acting as a sort of "cleaning service" that eats them off of other creatures' bodies. 

 

The worst part is it's not even their fault. Parasites don't act maliciously or out of love for causing pain. They do it because natural selection has forced them onto an evolutionary path where they can't survive unless they parasitize. Because parasitism can, unfortunately, be a very effective survival strategy. So if there is alien life somewhere out there in the universe, whether intelligent or not, why shouldn't we expect to see examples of parasitism on other worlds and  in alien ecosystems? 

In honor of spooky season, we're going to dive into the disturbing world of alien parasites. I've collected the grossest, most terrifying parasites I could find from across film, TV, video games, and comics. And we are going to scientifically determine the deadliest parasite science fiction has to offer.

Note: This article was inspired by a piece I previously published on Game Rant. While some of the information from that article was reused, I have rewritten each entry to avoid self-plagiarism (that's apparently a thing) and tried to expand on the original concept, as well as provide updated information when available.

The Imposter- (Among Us)

While Among Us doesn't take itself particularly seriously, it does present a pretty unnerving setup. The cartoon aesthetic, silly cosmetics, and memes might take the edge off your fear, but how would you feel being trapped on a ship with the knowledge that one of the people around you isn't who they claimed to be? 

The Imposter operates by infiltrating spaceships, consuming a crew member, and then assuming their identity. This gives them the ability to blend in, forcing the crew to use deductive reasoning to find them. When played effectively, the imposter can sabotage critical systems and eliminate crew members without drawing suspicion. A particularly crafty imposter can even divert suspicion onto other players, increasing the odds of an innocent person being thrown out the airlock.

Devastating as it is, however, the imposter only works at a small scale, and lacks the spreadability of many parasites. It can eliminate crew members but cannot infect anyone outside of its initial host. This makes it pretty tame in the grand scheme of things.

Fib- (Veggie Tales)

The Fib, also known by the scientific name Fibrilius Minimus, is a parasitic alien that takes a rather unconventional approach to its hosts. Instead of physically infecting them, it feeds off of dishonesty. When it lands in a heavily populated area, Fibrilius Minimus will scout the population in search of an individual who is in some sort of trouble, usually someone who has made a mistake or performed an immoral act and fears the consequences. This person will become their unwitting host. Children are an ideal target, due to their lack of critical thinking skills and ability to come up with lies that easily fall apart under scrutiny.

Upon making contact, the Fib will act as a friend while playing into their host's worries, convincing them it is better to lie about their misdeed than to admit fault. With each lie, Fibrilius Minimus is able to grow larger. Their growth rate accelerates with increased lies, so they will encourage the host to dig themselves deeper by continuing to lie even after being called out. In a matter of hours, Fibrilius Minimus can grow from a tiny ball-shaped alien to a godzilla-sized monster, at which point it will turn on and eat its host. 

Admittedly, we don't have a full picture of the Fib's life cycle, so it's hard to say for sure how easily it spreads. However, individual instances don't seem to be contagious. They tend to focus on a single host and conveniently "disappear" in the presence of witnesses. That said, the final stage does make them capable of destroying a city, so we shouldn't underestimate them. 

However, Fibrilius Minimus's method is also its greatest weakness. Just as it thrives on dishonesty, honesty can bring it down. The only known way to weaken or even kill it is for the original host to come clean about their lies. This is a pretty simplistic solution next to some on the list.

The primary method of travel used by Fibrilius Minimus appears to be via asteroids. The likely way it works is riding on asteroids until they enter the atmosphere of a habitable planet, then ejecting themselves into a populated area. While effective, it is not the most efficient means of spreading as it lacks any control of where it ends up.

Headcrabs (Half-Life)

Anyone familiar with the Half-Life games will be familiar with the infamous headcrabs, a parasitic organism that encases the head of its host. They've faced off against them and witnessed the horrific fates of their victims. The infamous cry of a headcrab zombie betrays the anguish experienced by those unfortunate enough to be hit by one. 

Headcrabs have a simple way of functioning. Once they find a host, they jump up and encase their head (hence the name). They then embed their arms into the host's shoulders and seize control of their nervous system. The process results in the body being contorted and mutated, all while the victim is still alive and fully conscious. The only hope for release is death. It's a cruel fate, one weaponized by the Combine, who love to deal with suspected dissidents by launching a rocket full of headcrabs at them.

However, the very fact that they can be weaponized betrays a much darker truth. As horrific as they may be, headcrabs are actually on the weaker end as far as parasites go. Their only method of infection is to physically secure themself on the host's body, and it is possible (if difficult) to kill one before this happens. With sufficient precautions, they can be handled without issue. The Combine were able to use them easily, vortigaunts are able to consume them as food, and Kleiner even kept one as a pet simply by debeaking it. 

While the results are nightmarish, Headcrabs ultimately lack the spreadability of many others, making them seem tame in comparison to others.

Seed Pods (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Seed Pods specialize in infiltration, which isn't unusual for a parasite, but they have one thing others don't- they don't have to physically infect their hosts. All that's needed is for a potential host to be in proximity to a seed pod. The pod produces a copy of the host. When the host falls asleep, they die and get replaced with the copy. That copy will then assume the host's identity while helping to continue spreading seed pods to infect more hosts.

What makes seed pods particularly dangerous is their discretion. They start small and gradually work their way out, carefully blending into the population and diverting any questions or investigation. Often it works so subtly that early signs are easily ignored. They come in the form of things like a kid saying there's something off about his mother, something easily disregarded by others. By the time they make themselves known, they're too late to stop.

Technically it is possible to spot a host- a general lack of emotion is a dead giveaway. However, by the time anyone can start identifying them they will have already spread to a point where they are really hard, if not impossible to avoid. The seed pods themselves can get so widespread that even the most resourceful survivors can be infected purely by chance. It was a total fluke of luck that any government response could be made to them, and that was the ending Don Siegel was forced to put in. His original vision was to end with the protagonist realizing how far it's spread and trying in vain to warn others (and the viewer) about what's coming.

The one limitation the seed pods have is they lack a means of self-spreading. While they can reproduce in alarmingly large numbers, actually spreading requires making use of their hosts and existing technology. Just covering the immediate area requires seed pods to actively be carried or loaded into vehicles to spread. Although this limitation does show them to be resourceful and adaptable to their environment, it does slow them down compared to others.

Genestealers (Warhammer 40k)

Tyranids usually function as predators, rather than parasites. However, there is one exception in one of their more... nefarious strategies. Genestealers are a special kind of Tyranid. They sneak aboard ships to get into worlds populated by other races. Once in place, they begin building up a cult, usually by seeking out outcasts and marginalized groups and slowly working their way into positions of power and influence. Over a few generations, their DNA will also start to infect the local population, producing hybrids. This makes them both a social and a biological parasite.

Left unchecked, a genestealer cult can gain enough power to dismantle a planet's defenses and destroy government infrastructures. Which is exactly the point. The goal, ultimately, is to leave the world vulnerable to a full-on tyranid invasion, essentially using parasitism to aid a predator. They can spread across an entire world without being noticed until it's too late.

The one silver lining, if it can be called that, is that genestealers are usually confined to a single planet. Once the final stage is complete, the genestealer and all its hybrid offspring are consumed as biomass along with everything else, rendering them incapable of spreading further. 

Xenomorphs (Alien)

The titular aliens from Alien function as both parasites and predators. As predators, they are apex hunters. A single fully-grown xenomorph can decimate a group of humans in a matter of hours. A whole colony can be too much even for a group of heavily armed colonial marines. Xenomorphs are great at using their environments to ambush their prey. It doesn't help that they're intelligent and fully capable of strategizing. 

As parasites, on the other hand, they have a messy reproductive cycle involving the infamous and aptly named facehugger and chestburster. The facehugger attaches itself to the host's head and shoves a tube down their throat through which it places the chestburster. Once that's fully grown, the chestburster will violently tear its way out of the host's body, killing them in the process.

As if that weren't bad enough, the facehugger has a cruel trick. It exploits the empathy of others to deter any effort at removal. It tightens its grip on the host's neck if any attempt its made at pulling it off. And the highly corrosive blood prevents it from being cut off without risking grievous harm to the host, the cutter, and any bystanders. Facehuggers can also burn through glass, so wearing a space suit won't offer any protection.

The good news is the facehugger alone isn't contagious. A single facehugger will attach itself to one host and die upon successfully implanting the embryo, so anyone around the host is unlikely to be infected. At least, that's if there's only one of them. While removing the facehugger is a huge gamble at best, it is at least theoretically possible to remove the chestburster via surgery if it is spotted early enough. 

To really get going, xenomorphs need to mass produce eggs... which is exactly what they do. The crew of Nostromo found hundreds of eggs, but were fortunate enough to only see one actually hatch. The settlers at LV-426, fifty-seven years later, weren't so lucky. However, this requires the establishment of a queen and a sufficient supply of potential hosts. While effective, this does take time and requires xenomorphs to jump through a few hoops before they can reach the level of other parasites. 

Zerg (Starcraft)

The Zerg are driven by an endless quest to achieve genetic perfection. To that end, they have an unusual biological quirk- an ability to consume other organisms and absorb their genes. This ability makes them highly adaptable to different environments, including outer space. By taking traits from other species, Zerg can produce a variety of different units for different tasks. There are even zerg who have evolved to act as living spaceships, facilitating interstellar travel. 

Naturally, they spread very easily and can consume entire worlds given the opportunity. While it is possible to resist them, this is easier said than done. They are extremely durable and resistant to most conventional weapons, and their sheer numbers can be overwhelming. There's a reason they are often referred to as a swarm.

Luckily, there is one thing that's stopped them from consuming the galaxy outright. They are pragmatic and can be reasoned with. Under the right circumstances, they can form alliances and make an uneasy truce with other races. And even uphold that truce. They were even open-minded enough to make a human their queen. While certainly not an easy thing to broker, it is more than can be said for a lot of parasites.

Mnggall-Mnggal (Star Wars)

Note: This may or may not be an actual image of Mngall-Mnggnal. It's been alternately labelled as Mgnall-Mnggal and a DND monster named Jubilex, and I have been unable to find the picture's original source, so I can't confirm which it is.

What I said earlier about parasites not being to blame for their actions? Yeah, that all goes out the window with Mnggal-Mnggal- a parasitic creature so twisted and evil, you could probably be forgiven for thinking this was Warhammer 40k's answer to the Thing instead of something out of Star Wars. What makes mnggall-mnggal particularly sick is its malevolence. It doesn't just parasitize to survive; it revels in it. It loves tormenting its hosts and using them to play mind games.

Mnggal-mnggal is essentially a sentient fluid, which makes it easy to infect a potential host. It commonly appears as a seemingly inert pool of black goo, waiting for a potential host. When one appears, it will splash the unfortunate victim, quickly sliding into any opening it can find in the body. A single drop will be more than enough to be lethal. mnggal-mnggalwill begin eating the host's body from the inside out, breaking down organs, tissue, and bone, until only the outer flesh remains. It will then continue to puppet its host until their body inevitably decays. 

This does make mnggal-mnggal easy to spot if one knows where to look. Zombified hosts have several obvious signs. However, what makes mnggal-mnggal dangerous is it's intelligence and desire for cruelty. It won't just infect anything in sight, it will actively communicate with them. mnggal-mnggal will offer lost secrets and forbidden knowledge that it may or may not actually have. One of its favorite tactics is to possess children and then sic their zombified remains on their parents. Some go as far as to suggest it doesn't even need to feed on its hosts and acts purely for fun. It even collects trophies in the form of shipwrecks orbiting its apparent homeworld of Mugg Fallow.

Judging by the state of their homeworld, which is completely taken over with mnggal-mnggal having destroyed just about everything, it can easily take over an entire planet. And has probably done this across several worlds. It also has a very simple mechanism for spreading. Once a host is taken, their remains can easily be used as a vector for spreading the goo to others. Gnall-Gnall can also use its hosts to pilot ships, so spreading to other worlds isn't a problem either. 

An important detail to keep in mind is the mnggal-mnggal isn't a species in the traditional sense. It's actually more like a single organism. Every instance ultimately connects to the same hive mind, making it great at co-ordination to the point where zombified hosts will often act in unison. 

Luckily, it is possible, if difficult, to quarantine mnggal-mnggal. It's bad enough that the Chiss are willing to pay handsomely for anyone open to purging an infected world. Full eradication is possible in theory, but nobody's come up with a plan for how to safely approach Mugg Fallow and destroy it at the source. And even then it's hard to say if that would be enough to destroy mnggal-mnggal for good.

The Thing (The Thing)

The titular monster of John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror classic The Thing was described as "the ultimate in alien terror" for a reason. Xenomorph infections are bad enough, but at least their victims can be identified with some level of reliability. Actually, dealing with the infection is another matter, but usually the presence of a facehugger makes it easy to tell who was infected. Not so much the case for The Thing. 

The Thing is an alien that not only infects and consumes its hosts, but also replaces their bodies with an identical copy. There are a few ways it can do this, but ultimately, its greatest strength is discretion. The ability to perfectly copy its host allows the Thing to easily blend into any environment and spread unnoticed. 

Once it gets going, the Thing is really hard to eradicate, because all it needs is a single cell. While an individual instance of the Thing can be defeated by a flamethrower or explosives, it remains a threat so long as any cellular activity remains. And even when one instance is dealt with, its rapid spread and built-in survival instincts make it easy for smaller pieces to break off and escape. 

But what makes the Thing especially dangerous is its intelligence. It doesn't just spread to whoever's nearby; it studies its targets and strategically decides who to infect. This intelligence can be used to exploit the inevitable paranoia of its victims and manipulate them against one another. It even has the knowledge to build its own transportation using whatever bits and pieces of machinery are available.

Left unchecked, the Thing could easily assimilate every organic lifeform on Earth in a few days at the most, and that's just the latest in what is probably a long chain of planets. Given sufficient means of travel, the Thing could spread across the galaxy and maybe even further. 

X Parasite (Metroid)

Metroid's X Parasite is a gelatinous organism that consumes its hosts and replaces them with an identical copy, similar to the Thing. In their base form, X Parasites look like large blobs, usually yellow though variations in other colors exist. In this state, they are really hard to kill, simply because it's hard to actually do any meaningful damage. But it gets worse when they actually infect a host. 

As a gelatinous lifeform, the X Parasite can easily squirm into the cracks of any armor and absorb itself into the host's body. They seize control of the host's nervous system and then begin reproducing. Each copy of the X Parasite begins taking over more and more of the victim's body, absorbing their DNA. When the process is finished, the host is replaced with a nearly identical copy. It will look like the original host, while also inheriting all their skills and memories. Just about everything short of emotions. 

Unsurprisingly, the X Parasite can spread really fast, especially if it gets the right host. The entire infection process only takes a few seconds. For the Chozo, it got so bad that they had to genetically engineer a predatory organism to keep it at bay- this is literally the entire reason Metroids exist. And even they couldn't completely wipe it out. 

Voidworms (Stellaris)

If some of the parasites above seem frightening, how about one that consumes entire planets? While many of the previous entries, like the Thing or Seed Pods, and the Genestealers, could easily take over a planet given the chance, they still have to infect on an individual level. That usually means gradually infecting hosts one at a time. World domination doesn't happen straight away, and there is at least theoretically time to identify and stop them. That all goes out the window for voidworms. 

These space leeches travel across the galaxy looking for planets occupied by biological life forms. When they find a suitable world, they bombard it with spores, quickly overwhelming and easily infecting any living organisms on the surface, whose bodies become incubators for the worm's young. Eventually, they emerge from their hosts as nymphs and leave the planet, continuing the cycle.

While they don't appear to have the intelligence of other species, their ability to mass infect an entire planet gives them a firm reproductive advantage. It is possible to develop a cure to the infection and even an immunity, but this takes time- easily enough for the infection to spread before a cure can get anywhere near completion.

Another thing that makes voidworms especially dangerous- they can travel through the vacuum of space. Keep in mind that other examples, like the Thing or even mnggal-mnggal, still need to either build their own transport or exploit their host's technology. Voidworms can travel through space unimpeded and, while not indestructible, become formidable opponents when allowed to grow to their full size.  

The Flood (Halo)

The parasitic menace known as the Flood is basically responsible for setting the entirety of Halo into motion. This parasite mainly transmits itself through airborne spores, which are then breathed in by other species, allowing their bodies to be taken over and mutated. There are several different forms that mutation can take, but they all serve the same basic purpose of spreading the infection by whatever means available. The use of spores make it easy to spread and infect multiple hosts at a time. 

That alone would be bad enough, but it gets worse. The flood considers intelligent species a primary target because it can learn from each host's mind. When a host is infected, the flood gets access to their mind. It can read their memories and access everything they know. The more intelligent hosts consumed, the more it learns. This allows the flood to become a lot more organized and strategic. Once it starts forming a gravemind, the Flood can start using advanced battle tactics and even play conflicting sides against one another for its own ends. 

This already happened once before. The flood became so widespread that the Forerunners had to turn to an extreme solution. The only way to stop it was to use the Halo Arrays, a collection of superweapons powerful enough to wipe out all life in the galaxy. While Chief is able to prevent that happening a second time, they come pretty close.

Brethren Moons (Dead Space)

The Brethren Moons are massive aliens, similar in size to the Jovian moons, who have built their entire existence around exploiting the evolutionary patterns of other species. Their method relies on what could be described as a galactic trojan horse, known as the marker. It's like a cruel inversion of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Where the monolith acts to further the evolution of other species into an intelligent spacefaring civilization, the marker presents itself to an established spacefaring species and engineers their downfall.

The whole system relies on a common evolutionary pitfall. Each species encounters a problem when it exhausts their homeworld's resources and must travel into space to sustain itself. The Brethren moons offer the marker as an apparent solution- a free and infinite power source, and who's going to say no to that? Even better, they're designed to be easily studied and reproduced. The host species, seeing a perfect solution to their energy problems, will begin making more markers and dispersing them across every planet they've settled. All while failing to realize this is only step one of a bigger, much darker plan.

By becoming an integral part of the host species' society, the markers are able to secretly begin manipulating people around them with electromagnetic frequencies. This begins discreetly, with the marker causing people in proximity to begin experiencing hallucinations. This is used to create chaos which then leaves bodies that can be reanimated as necromorphs, corpses modified into durable killing machines that further the infection. The final stage is a convergence event where all the leftover biomass is brought together and forms into a new Moon.

The biggest advantage the moons have is their ability to mass infect on a level unseen in most parasites, without even touching their hosts. While they are certainly capable of surviving in a vacuum, they don't even need to travel. The use of markers allows them to quickly infect multiple worlds simultaneously, while also taking their host species by surprise. It's already known that they previously destroyed thousands, if not millions, of other civilizations through this process. And each cycle only produces a new moon, adding to their numbers and making them increasingly powerful. 

The only limitation the moons have appears to be a technological one. They can launch markers around the galaxy, but lack the means to actually build them, instead relying on their host species to replicate and spread them across any given civilization. But being as immensely powerful as they are, this is a pretty minor drawback.

Starro (DC Comics)

Now, admittedly, when it comes to this one, the available data can be wildly inconsistent, thanks to DC's tendency to constantly rewrite its own canon. Is he a single entity or part of a larger species? What exactly is the full range of his powers? Is he even truly a villain or more of an anti-hero? It all depends on exactly which version we're looking at across a huge range of comics from different eras, plus movie and TV versions.

That said, Starro is usually portrayed as a ruthless tyrant seeking power and control. To that end, he relies on a seemingly infinite supply of parasitic starfish that can be launched at will. These will attach themselves to a host's face and override their nervous system. The host's free will is suppressed, and their body effectively becomes a drone for Starro's bidding. 

Whether the host can survive this process depends on the version, but Starro can launch thousands of stars at once, and co-ordinate hosts across massive distances unthinkable to most parasites. At his most powerful, Starro has been able to infect and control hosts across nine galaxies. And he has even shown a capability to infect superheroes, having used his mind-control stars on several Justice League members on multiple occasions. 

The Hiss (Control)

The Hiss are an extra-dimensional entity that even managed to overwhelm an entire US government agency dedicated to protecting extra-dimensional threats. The Hiss can infect and assimilate its hosts in an instant, transforming them into tools that further its spread. There are a few different ways hosts can be used, but they all serve the same function. At best, hosts get turned into transmission vectors who constantly perform a mysterious incantation that seems to facilitate their spread. At worst, hosts can turned into weapons, their skills turned on their former allies. Or even worse, the hiss can modify their hosts on a molecular level, twisting and contorting their bodies to whatever serves their purpose.

Some of this might not sound that unusual, but how many parasites can travel across dimensions and spread by literally breaking reality? The Hiss are powerful enough to easily overwhelm and confuse an entire government wing dedicated to dealing with extra-dimensional threats, taking the majority of its personnel almost immediately. Just Containing the hiss was only made possible by intervention from another equally powerful entity, and even that took massive foresight and extensive research from their head scientist.  If not for Polaris, the Hiss would easily have overtaken the world and probably continued spreading, maybe even destroying the universe as they have in other realities.

No other entity on this list has the power to deal the amount of damage the Hiss can do when allowed to run wild. This easily makes them the deadliest parasite there is.

Why I Don't Play Soulslikes

 

Soulslike games seem to be everywhere. The release and commercial success of FromSoftware's Demon's Souls in 2009, combined with the even bigger success of their follow-up Dark Souls in 2011, sparked a long line of games mimicking FromSoftware's games in terms of style and gameplay. Some notable examples include Lords of the Fallen, Mortal Shell, Nioh 1 and 2, Steelrising,  Enotria: The Last Song, Lies of P, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor, and Another Crab's Treasure. And that's not even getting into how FromSoftware itself has perpetuated the trend by continuing to produce similar games, such as Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.

It's a bit like how Die Hard (1989) ended up being such a huge hit it launched a sub-genre of action movies mimicking aspects of its story and plot structure. Much like how the sub-genre is commonly known as "Die Hard on an X" or just a "Die Hard Imitator," this trend of games has become known as "Soulslike," after the titles that popularized it. 

This genre remains hugely popular. But to be honest, I don't really get the appeal. Sure they may look good and have interesting worldbuilding, but it's hard to appreciate all that when the genre itself causes more frustration than enjoyment. 

I'd like to go over all the issues I have with this genre. I'll try to identify as best I can the major things that define it, go through my personal thoughts on each point, and even try to address a few counterarguments. I'll also add in some suggestions for how soulslike games could be made more accessible to a wider range of players. And I'll even include some recommendations for what people like me can do to appreciate the detail of soulslike games without the pain.

What is a Soulslike?

Of course, one lesson you quickly learn in film studies is just how difficult it is to actually nail down a single, universally applicable definition of what makes a particular genre. There is always going to be disagreement, and there are usually some contested entries as well. 

I don't know of anyone who would argue that Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), The Wild Bunch (1969), Pale Rider (1985), and The Quick and the Dead (1995) are not all westerns. But what actually makes something a western? The short answer is, it depends on who you ask. 

Will Wright attempted to define the western with his book Six Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western, which argued that all westerns fit into one of four basic plots. Except, as later writers noted, he completely failed to account for the existence of spaghetti westerns. And we could go further. No Country For Old Men is set in 1980's Texas, could it still be considered a western? There are also western-inspired movies like Quigley Down Under (1990) set in the Australian outback. Are these westerns? What about "urban westerns" like Dirty Harry (1971) or "space westerns" like Firefly (2002)?

Much like the western, it can be hard to nail down exactly what makes a "soulslike." Every game is going to do something a bit different. And no matter what criteria we set, there are always going to be outliers. But we can identify a few patterns that, at the very least, most people will agree are common conventions of the soulslike game.

Gameplay

Soulslike games are typically structured as RPGs with an emphasis on combat and exploration. They usually involve situating the player in a fantastical world, where they are left to wander and run into any number of enemies. Fighting them gains experience which allows the player to get stronger and better at handling themselves in the world. 

The thing that distinguishes it from other RPGs, however, is its brutal difficulty. These games are designed to be as difficult as possible. Enemies pop up everywhere, and they're relentless. Many of them can easily overpower the player in one way or another. Or they just attack in large enough numbers to easily overwhelm them. Or it's super-overpowered enemies in large numbers. This makes it really easy to stumble even against the weakest opponents. 

Most soulslike titles put a heavy emphasis on melee combat, though many of them will experiment with additional supporting mechanics. Lies of P gives its one-armed protagonist an assortment of prosthetics with different abilities. Mortal Shell allows the player to possess different "shells" (aka the armored bodies of fallen warriors), which lets them switch between different playstyles. Bloodborne and Flintlock: Siege of Dawn both experiment with adding firearms to the mix.

The protagonist in Lies of P is an amputee. Players can choose from several different prosthetics with different strengths and weaknesses.

A common pattern with soulslike games is they make it really hard to save your progress. Most soulslike games rely on designated save points. The name and appearance of these will vary, but essentially they act as a spot where the player can stop. Often there is an option to "rest" which will restore their health, but doing so also respawns all defeated enemies. To make things extra frustrating, the save points are scattered as far from each other as possible. This means that the player will have to run through a maze of deadly enemies, sometimes including a boss fight, before they can save again, and dying will set back any progress made since the last save, which makes things especially challenging when it's ridiculously easy to die.

Setting

A lot of soulslike games fall into the genre of fantasy, being set in a fictional world populated by supernatural forces (albeit often one that takes aesthetic inspiration from history or literature). However, this is not a requirement. Some soulslikes, such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, are set against the backdrop of historical events (albeit with fantasy elements woven in). While less common, there are also examples of sci-fi soulslikes, like Steelrising and Remnant: From the Ashes.

Regardless of what genre is actually picked, most soulslikes take place in a bleak, unforgiving world that is in some way "broken" beyond repair. It's rare to see a soulslike that takes place in a vibrant, optimistic world. Often, this world has been beset by some sort of calamity, and whatever civilization might have existed collapsed a long time ago. Whatever major players in the world's history remain are shadows of their former selves, broken and twisted by their tragic history, and will commonly serve as bosses.

Elden Ring takes place in a fantasy world fractured after a series of past calamities. Much of the game is structured around exploring the ruins of a once-thriving civilization.

The in-game map is commonly designed to be nonlinear and confusing. Soulslike games often throw the player into the thick of things without much explanation, with no indication of where to go or what needs to be done. Exploration is sometimes rewarded by allowing the player to unlock shortcuts. For example, they may be able to drop a ladder or open a gate to make a newly-discovered region accessible where it previously wasn't. 

Story

Soulslike games are often praised for their stories, but the part that isn't explained upfront is that they don't tell stories in the most conventional sense. Typically, they open with the protagonist being placed in a designated starting area, where their journey begins. With a few exceptions, there usually isn't much established about the overarching goal. Cutscenes outside the beginning and end are rare, if present at all. 

Instead, the common pattern is environmental storytelling. Basically, a lot of the story and worldbuilding isn't immediately clear to the player, and the game itself doesn't directly reveal it. Instead, the player has to pay attention to the environment around them and piece together clues about what's going on. This can take a lot of forms. A common one is hiding clues in descriptions of items the player can recover. Sometimes hidden aesthetic choices and NPC interaction can also reveal bits and pieces or at least fuel speculation among players.

Objectives

Soulslike games often like to confuse their players by being vague about what their actual goals are. The protagonist may be given a vague objective with no real context or information about how to do it, or they may just be thrown into the deep end with nothing at all. Sometimes they offer sidequests, but these can also be equally confusing. Although there are exceptions, most soulslike games refrain from using objective markers and many don't even offer a journal for tracking quests. 

Conclusion

Obviously, this is not a perfect guide. Much like the western, any attempt to narrow down a set criteria will always be met with outliers and contested entries. For example, there's a fair bit of contention on whether Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order and its sequel Survivor are actually soulslikes. They adopt a lot of similar gameplay like difficult melee combat, learning attack patterns, nonlinear disorienting maps, and sporadic save points that respawn enemies when used. On the other hand, it relies less on environmental storytelling and more on cutscenes, which some would argue makes it not a true soulslike.

There are also examples of souls-inspired games that don't fit the genre perfectly but incorporate aspects of it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 uses cutscenes and a more clearly defined story, as well as turn-based combat. However, it still adopts a similar level of difficulty, confusing map designs, and a system where save points are scattered and respawn defeated enemies when used. Is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a soulslike? Hard to say.

And what of FromSoftware themselves, the ones who created the genre and continue to fuel its popularity? Is it appropriate to apply the label of "soulslike" to Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, or Elden Ring, or is it a defining feature that soulslike games are made by other companies mimicking FromSoftware's style? For our purposes, we will say they are, getting a consensus on this point is no easy task.

While it may be hard to perfectly identify a soulslike, we can at least label a few common patterns that most players can agree on:

• Extreme Difficulty
• Sporadic Saving
• Nonlinear map and level design
• Environmental Storytelling
• Bleak, unforgiving worlds
• Lack of clear direction

Now that we have some idea of what the key components are, we can discuss the issues in more depth.

Responses

Overly Difficult Combat

Soulslikes are often characterized by extreme difficulty. While it's normal for games to challenge players, soulslikes go a tad overboard, like the developers are trying to make the game as infuriating to play as possible. Players are thrown into a strange world with at most a vague idea of what the need to do, and suddenly have to survive a death maze full of enemies who can take them out in one hit. Even the most basic enemies in the game are brutally difficult, and can knock back progress for the slightest mistakes. 

And this is often mixed with boss fights. Sometimes, you have to go through a death corridor full of monsters and defeat a boss before the game will let you save. And even this isn't going to accomplish much because saving just respawns them so now if you go back, you have to deal with the same enemies all over again. 

Environmental Storytelling

This, on its own, isn't necessarily a bad thing. The phrase "show, don't tell" exists for a reason. Video games also have an advantage over film in this regard, as players can take more time to examine the world around them. While a movie can certainly make use of an environment to tell its story, and many do, it is ultimately limited by how it is scripted, filmed, and edited. We see things from fixed and pre-planned camera angles of set durations. In a video game, the player often has a bit more freedom to move around and study the world from different angles. Some games are specifically designed for this.

However, environmental storytelling is not the exclusive domain of soulslikes. In fact, if anything, the soulslike format kind of gets in the way of environmental storytelling being used effectively. It's hard to appreciate all the little details and creative worldbuilding when you're so preoccupied trying to navigate their death maze and getting one-hit-killed at every turn. We can, in fact look at other games where it is used far more effectively.

A great example of a non-soulslike game that uses environmental storytelling to great effect is the indie game Return of the Obra Din. This game centers around investigating the titular ship and determining the fates of its crew. The player has a pocket watch that can be activated at specific environmental cues to witness pieces of the voyage, all taken out of context. These fragments consist of an audio snippet followed by a 3D snapshot. The player can use these frozen moments to examine details and make deductions. They can move around, study people, details, and make notes. In fact, Return of the Obra Din arguably goes further than a lot of soulslikes with its environmental storytelling, since the player has to actively deduce the identities of 60 people and what happened to them based entirely on visual and sometimes audio clues. 

In Return of the Obra Din, the player uncovers the titular ship's story by using environmental clues to make deductions

And you know what makes Return of the Obra Din different from something like Dark Souls or Bloodborne? It has no combat mechanics. Sure, the player gets to witness action scenes, or at least freeze frames from them, but they don't participate themselves. There's no death gauntlet full of monsters ready to take you out in one hit if you don't know the exact attack pattern to fight them. 

And this works to its advantage, because it actually lets you take the time to study the environment and look for those details. When the game puts you in a frozen moment, you can examine it at your own pace. You can move around, look at it from different angles, and the game even provides a book for making notes on your observations and deductions.

Meanwhile, in a soulslike game, you're too preoccupied trying not to die to actually examine and study those clues. When you're more concerned about everyone trying to kill you, it's kind of hard to stop and notice those little details that give valuable insight. 

Environmental storytelling is great, but as Return of the Obra Din shows, we can have it used really well without the crushing difficulty of the soulslike genre. In fact, it's a lot more effective when the game actually lets you pause to appreciate it once in a while.

Respawning Enemies

It gets a bit tedious to be fighting the same enemies over and over again, especially when they're so brutally difficult they can easily take you down. And you know one way or another you're going to be back on the path you just got through, whether intentionally or accidentally. It doesn't feel like you really defeated them if they just keep coming back. And to me, it feels a lot like undermining my progress. 

So I finally get through the death gauntlet that I had to pass just to get from one save point to another, and now everything I just did gets undone the minute I'm able to stop and catch my breath? Every single enemy I just dealt with is just suddenly back to full health and ready to kill me again? And if I have to use that path again (which I probably will, because that's how these games work), I have to fight them all over again? This isn't feeling like any sort of progress or accomplishment; it just feels like I'm bashing my head against the wall. 

This doesn't mean those paths have to be empty after I get through them. There can still be encounters, but do they always have to be the exact same enemies I already killed? 

Sporadic Save Points

Another annoying detail of the soulslike is how ridiculously spread out the save points are. Having designated locations to save isn't necessarily a bad mechanic, but soulslikes take it to the utmost extreme. They're put as far away from each other as possible, and getting from one point to another requires the player to go through a winding path full of super-difficult enemies, sometimes even a boss fight, before they can finally save. 

In Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, the player can only save by resting at sporadically placed shrines. But doing so respawns all defeated enemies.

This makes it really infuriating when there are so many ways to die and not a lot of options for healing. Any time I make the slightest bit of progress, I end up getting reset because some enemy got the jump on me and I couldn't react quickly enough. After doing that for say... weeks, getting stuck trying to clear one section, it starts to feel like I'm beating a dead horse. It feels like the ultimate embodiment of the true definition of insanity. 

Would it really kill the developers to at least have options to save more often. You can still put challenges in between, just maybe put them a bit closer together.

A Less Painful Way to Appreciate Soulslikes

If you're like me and a soulslike game is proving too much, the best thing to do is to stop playing it. If it's just making you more frustrated than enjoying it, it's not worth it anyway. Just stop playing. If it's a hard copy, give it to a friend or sell it and use the money to buy something more your speed. That way, it can at least go to someone more comfortable with that style of gameplay.

But if you still want to enjoy the worldbuilding and lore of these games, the internet is your friend. There are plenty of channels dedicated to breaking down and explaining the intriguing lore around video games, including soulslikes. This is especially true for FromSoftware, with whole channels dedicated just to exploring different parts of Elden Ring. 

One of the best channels for this is Zullie the Witch, a dataminer who specializes in studying the files of FromSoftware games. Her videos offer detailed breakdowns of their models, highlighting all those interesting little details that play into the lore, as well as some insight behind the scenes on how FromSoftware's models work.

Trust me, it's a much less painful way to appreciate everything that goes into these sorts of games. Especially since you can actually pay attention to all those little things when they're not repeatedly killing you.

Rebuttals

It's Worth it For the Challenge

Sure, it can feel good when you accomplish a difficult task, even a seemingly impossible one. But it it really worth beating your head against the wall for that brief feeling, one which will be very quickly crushed by the next challenge? Seeing "You Died" pop up a million times gets a bit disenfranchising after a while. It would be one thing if these were specific moments but soulslike games like to do this with every single encounter. 

So you beat one boss only to then end up in another death gauntlet with enemies who kill you right away. And of course if there wasn't a save point or you missed it because of how the level was designed, now you get set back and have to do the boss fight all over again. And that's assuming that using the save point doesn't just resurrect the boss so they can kill you all over again.

Now sure, having a difficult boss makes sense, but do they really have to make every enemy so frustrating. And is it really worth the challenge of actually overcoming those enemies if saving just respawns them anyway? This isn't a worthy challenge. It's just mentally exhausting. You ever heard the true definition of insanity? That's literally what these games are- they force you to keep doing the same thing over and over again in the hopes of a different outcome. 

You can Make it Easier by Farming XP From Respawning Enemies

When people talk about farming in video games, unless it is actually a game about farming, they are usually referring to a situation where a player repeatedly performs a task to accumulate a resource. This could be any number of things depending on the game, but in soulslike it specifically refers to experience points, commonly abbreviated as XP. As is common in RPGs, soulslikes usually have a levelling mechanic where the player gains XP from defeating enemies. Being able to level up provides them with improved stats, upgrades, and new abilities that help them against tougher enemies.

One argument in favor of the respawning enemies mechanic is the potential for farming XP from them. This is a common tactic for soulslike fans. Respawning enemies means they can be fought again, so players will repeatedly fight them in order to gain more XP which makes them tougher and better at dealing with bigger threats. One argument here is that, when you know what to do, you can actually make the games easier for yourself. But that doesn't really work for me.

XP Farming, as popularized by Dark Souls, is a practice where players fight the same enemies repeatedly in order to accumulate XP and level up.

You see, the issue here is the fact that I'm stuck fighting the same enemies over and over again in the hopes that I will have a slightly better chance down the line. That just sounds like it's making things needlessly tedious. And keep in mind, this is something you'll usually have to do throughout the game. Every time you make the slightest bit of progress you get stifled because you have to start grinding all over again just to have a fighting chance in the next section when I just want to move forward.

While grinding isn't unusual in other RPGs, many of them will at least offer variety in how to get that XP. You don't have to put the story on pause just so you can attack the same enemies a thousand times and get strong enough to move an inch forward. Some even offer other options, like being able to gain XP through dialogue with NPCs or doing side quests, which helps a lot with making the grind more enjoyable.

How Can Developers Address These Issues?

So now that I've gone on a tirade about why soulslikes are so frustrating to play, let's look at some of the ways they could theoretically improve. This is not to diminish those who do, for whatever reason, love the super hardcore soulslike mechanics. However, accessibility is a great thing to have in a video game and it's in the best interests of the developers to be accessible since doing so helps bring in more players. So let's go over som eof the above issues and look at how they could be addressed.

One of the simplest solutions is to have difficulty settings, and to their credit, there are some that do. Another Crab's Treasure is nice enough to have a lower setting for people who just want the game's story without all the frustration. But many of them don't do this. A lot of them just throw the player in on maximum difficulty with no options. 

Save Points

The first, and perhaps simplest solution, is to add a manual or auto-save, so at least some progress is preserved if the player dies, and they don't have to go back completely to the start. Or perhaps a checkpoint system could be used where the game automatically saves when the player reaches a specific point. Any of these could also be included as options, rather than something imposed on players. When you start up the game, just select whether you want manual/auto save enabled based on your preferences and you're all set.

However, if we must have save points, why don't we move them closer together. Your enemies are already tough enough as it is. I get that it makes things more challenging and adds tension, but you can still have that while being able to save more frequently.  Even if they are relatively close, you still have to deal with the confusing map and some enemies to get from one to another, so it's not like it doesn't feel like a relief when you finally make it. It just doesn't feel like you're spending weeks trying to clear one path and getting set back repeatedly. This could also be included as an option, so die-hard soulslike players can still get the full experience.

Alternatively, while the sporadic save points are a staple of the genre, that doesn't mean we can't experiment with variations. How about having an alternative save option with a trade-off? For instance, what about having two different types of save locations? There could be the type we already have, which is more spread out, but perhaps a smaller, more frequent one, that saves but lacks some of the functions of the main one, like perhaps not being able to heal or level you up, or just not healing as much. 

Any of these choices could take the edge off the frustration of playing a soulslike. A big part of what makes them so infuriating is getting repeatedly set back, so being able to at least save more often so you're not completely restarting all the time would make it a lot more accessible.

Respawning Enemies

Farming XP from respawning enemies is a common staple of the genre, but fighting the same enemies over and over gets a bit tedious when you just want to move forward. Some players have the patience for it but a lot of us just aren't interested in getting bogged down in grinding that one enemy when we could be exploring the world and progressing the story. There's no real reason it has to be there so why not experiment with removing it? Or at least making it optional.

For the casual players, this makes the world a lot more varied. If we're not fighting the same enemies over and over again it's a lot easier to take the time to appreciate all the worldbuilding and the story. And you still get the XP for defeating enemies, it's just not the same ones.

Now a hardcore soulslike player will probably be up in arms at the mere suggestion of this. But I thought the challenge was supposed to be part of the appeal. Well, here's a new challenge for you- let's see how you fare when one of the most popular soulslike strategies no longer works. Surely there are other ways you can get XP, and a good development team could probably find a good alternative XP farming mechanic if there really needs to be one.

Provide Objectives

Soulslike games have a habit of being extremely vague about objectives. There's no clear direction of where the player needs to go or what they need to do. Even side quests can be incredibly vague. An NPC will give you a short description of what to do and... that's it. No guides, no markers, not even a place where you can review basic information about the quest. You're pretty much expected to stumble around or just hope to memorize everything the NPC said. Unsurprisingly, this makes things a bit frustrating. 

Now, for a hardcore soulslike player, this might be part of the appeal. However, for the more casual one, it's a bit more daunting when they have nothing to go on. A lot of soulslikes don't even provide an in-game map. This is a huge leap from other RPGs, which are often pretty good about labelling goals. There are actually a few things a soulslike can take from other RPGs when it comes to objectives. And implementing some of these would be great for newcomers.

First off, a great feature would be a journal. This is a standard in many other RPGs, and even some other genres. Having an in-game journal to record objectives is a valuable tool for game progression. When given a mission, even something small, the journal can record important information to be reviewed by the player.

Objective markers are also a good feature to have. They don't have to be everywhere, but something that just points in the right direction would go a long way to helping casual players. Even if it didn't point to the objective's exact location, just led you to the general area, it would make the game so much more accessible. 

Now, a hardcore player might argue that this defeats the purpose. Well, they're under no obligation to use the journal. And even if there are objective markers, they don't have to be mandated. Like many of the suggestions I've proposed, it doesn't seem that crazy to simply give players the option. A player who likes the full soulslike experience would only need to disable them in the opening screen. Doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. And the same could be done with the journal.

However, if you really don't want objective markers, here's another alternative- a map. So many soulslike games don't even give the player an in-game map to review. But here's what you could do- combine the map and the journal. The journal can record important information like... for instance... a location important to one of the main objectives. This would still require some effort, too, since a map could narrow down the search area but wouldn't neccessarily give you the exact co-ordinates. It might tell you which region to look in but you'd still have to figure out where in that region it is.

Clearer Tutorials

A lot of soulslike games have a habit of throwing the player into the deep end without really explaining anything, including game mechanics. At most, they might get a prompt explaining basic movement and attacks, and that's about it. Now a hardcore soulslike player might argue this is part of the appeal. They might say that figuring out how things work is part of the enjoyment. However, for a new or casual player this can be pretty daunting, especially when the game relies on more detailed mechanics that it never really explains.

An option for tutorials, at least regarding the basics and essential mechanics, would go a long way to helping newer players find their footing. Something that went over the basic combat mechanics and gave the player an opportunity to practice before getting plunged into the death maze would be a great start. But it might also help to have tutorials properly introducing and going over any mechanics the game wants to experiment with.

For instance, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has a central mechanic involving madness. When it accumulates enough, the protagonist's inner psychological issues are personified in the form of an "Inner Demon" which will attack her. However, the game never actually explains or properly sets up this mechanic so it seems to come out of nowhere. A player going in with zero context could easily be forgiven for thinking it was just a random enemy that accidentally spawned because of a bug. The same game also relies heavily on using a substance called Red Mercury, but never actually tells you what to do with it. 

In both examples, a tutorial - even an optional one - explaining these mechanics would be a huge benefit. Even just a text box that explains what the Inner Demon is and what you can do when it appears would be hugely beneficial. Or maybe an optional side quest that gives an overview of how to use Red Mercury. Even if it's just the basics, and some of the details are left for the player to work out, it would still help a lot with grounding newer and casual players. 

Additionally, having an option for tutorials related to enemies could help. I get that learning attack patterns is a big part of the experience, but you need to start somewhere. They don't need to explain every single opponent in the game, but maybe some tutorials that properly introduce some of the most common basic enemies, different ways they can attack you, and how you can react would help get new and casual players get on their feet so they can start figuring out more difficult opponents.

A Database

Soulslike games love to throw the player headfirst into a confusing world, often with little to no context or background information. This isn't always the case. Exceptions like Jedi Fallen Order and Another Crab's Treasure exist. But a lot of them try to disorient the player right from the start. And this is where environmental storytelling becomes an important part. The player is expected to find and piece together bits of information they find while exploring the environment. 

But there's often no real way to keep track of it. No database or anything. The player is pretty much expected to just remember everything. And this is where having some sort of reference would be extremely helpful. Like a database that can keep track of information currently known to the player character. It doesn't need to be anything fancy, just a basic guide the player can consult which can be filled out as they go.

For example, maybe updating the player with any information they get on major characters in the world. A lot of these games have elaborate backstories so some record of who did what, even the most basic surface-level information, will help avoid confusion. Making a record of enemies encountered in the game will also help with providing context for the player. Even if it's something as simple as recording different types of enemies as they're encountered and notable weaknesses.

Basically, some sort of reference the player can consult to better keep track of information they currently have, instead of having to go purely on memory and digging out a specific item just to read its description.

Spread out the Challenge

I get that soulslikes are meant to be challenging, and that's part of the appeal, but does absolutely everything need to be so painfully difficult? Why not spread things out a bit and give the player some breathing room? Maybe even offer some alternatives to combat, like more dialogue-driven interactions with NPCs- this is supposed to be an RPG, isn't it, so how about some roleplay? Maybe there could be a mechanic where interacting with the right NPCs in the right way could give you advantages or penalties in a later boss encounter. Or they could add in the occasional puzzle to change things up. Just something that offers a break from repeatedly dying.

An even better idea would be to spread out the death gauntlets and mix it up with some paths that are a little less intense. Now this might sound absurt to soulslike players, but it could actually make a decent gameplay dillemna. What if the player has two possible paths to reach their goal- they can take one path that's safer but much longer, or a more direct path that's full of enemies. The shorter path would be great for XP farming and get the player where they need to be faster. The longer path would be slower and not give as much XP but be much better for a player who's too badly hurt to keep going. The player could then evaluate the choices based on their current circumstances and decide which is more strategic. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, my experience with soulslike games is they tend to feel more like a needlessly frustrating exercise in futility than anything actually enjoyable or worth the challenge. To me, it just seems like I get stuck in a loop doing the same thing over and over only to get killed horribly. And I can't even save the minute amounts of progress I do make, so I just get sent back and suddenly have to do it all over again. It gets to the point where you can spend weeks just trying to clear the first stage. 

I get that it's supposed to be challenging, but does it really have to be this challenging? Would it really hurt the developers to at least have difficulty levels and options to make it less infuriating for players? Now some players might just say "Well if you don't like it, don't play it." Okay, but this genre is popping up everywhere. So many games that might otherwise be quite interesting feel the need to adopt this bizarrely popular model. It can be quite annoying to find a game that sounds really interesting, only to discover it's part of a genre like this. And it's popular enough that one could stumble into it by accident.

Ultimately, winding things back would be in the best interest of both the players and the developers. For developers, it means reading a wider audience and getting more players interested in their game. For players, it's an opening to enjoy something that otherwise becomes overbearingly frustrating. And making the options available allows each player to customize their own experience. A hardcore player could still get the full soulslike experience, they just do so by choice, while a more casual player can enjoy what the game has to offer without wanting to throw their controller at the screen.

Unfortunately, a lot of developers don't do that. They make games that cause unnecessary stress, stifle progress, and often feel like they're designed to be as frustrating as possible to play. 

And that is why I don't play soulslikes.

Deepwater Horizon: A Pretty Solid Disaster Film

 

If I had a nickel for every time I played a Lovecraft-inspired video game and suddenly felt inspired to go to my local library and check out a tangentially related disaster movie with Mark Walburg that dramatized a tragic nautical disaster, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice! 

First, I played Dredge, game about being a fisherman in Lovecraftian waters, and suddenly felt the need to seek out Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm- still a pretty good movie. A few weeks later, I try out a game called Still Wakes the Deep, and suddenly I'm reminded of a movie about an oil rig disaster- Deepwater Horizon. I don't think I actually saw this when it came out in 2016, but I remembered seeing advertisements for it. 

So why not take a look even if it is an odd way to have it brought to my attention... or is it? 

Mike Williams (Mark Walberg), James Harrell (Kurt Russell), and Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) are crew members assigned to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, only to find it barely functional. Despite a multitude of problems and last-minute tests showing they really shouldn't be drilling here, BP executive Donald Vildrine (John Malkovich), decides to ignore the experts and force them to start drilling anyway. Because that's what happens when you put big businessmen in charge of dangerous machinery. PLOT TWIST! This turns out to be a really bad idea. The movie is a dramatization of the real-life Deepwater Horizon explosion, which caused a massive oil spill and killed 11 of its workers.

Disaster movies are notoriously hard to pull off. It's easy to get so caught up in the spectacle that the story feels more like an excuse to justify the special effects, or, on the flip side, to spend so much time on the buildup it takes too long to get to the actual disaster. Deepwater Horizon manages to find that comfortable middle ground. It takes its time getting to the big moment, but by the time the special effects happen, you've gotten acquainted with the major characters, conflicts, and the life of an oil rig worker. 

The acting in this film is actually really good. Everyone seems to do their best and fully immerse themselves in their characters. Kurt Russel is barely recognizable with his big mustache and southern accent. But the real standout performance is John Malkovich as the charismatic BP executive Donald Vildrine. He really nails the role of a charismatic but ruthless businessman who misuses his authority, easily stealing the spotlight in every scene he's in. Interestingly, though, this is mostly in the first half, while he is completely silent in the second- an interesting reflection of his experiences.

And of course, we can't discuss a disaster movie without talking about the special effects. And the film certainly delivers on that. Deepwater Horizon takes full advantage of its setting to create a visual spectacle for the audience. Even before the fires and explosions happen, the audience is treated to some interesting views of the rig's inner workings. These shots, giving us a glimpse into how the drill shaft operates, actually do a lot for building up atmosphere. 

Of course, when things actually start going wrong, it still delivers. The rig feels like a deathtrap from the start. Everything about it just feels like it's begging for something to go wrong. The team supposedly there to inspect the drill's structural integrity leaves the instant the main characters arrive, having done zero tests. A lot of the rig's machines are poorly maintained, if they even function at all (probably because BP is cheap). Even the phones aren't working properly. So when the explosion finally happens, it feels like a natural consequence of everything that's already been established.

Overall, Deepwater Horizon is a surprisingly competent disaster film from, of all people, Battleship director Peter Berg. Yeah, I was surprised to learn that, too. Turns out, he might be a more capable director than the infamous board game adaptation would have you believe. Even if it was a bit weird to be brought here by making an unlikely connection through a video game... or was it.

Still Wakes the Deep and Deepwater Horizon aren't quite as far off as you might expect. It's true that one is a grounded dramatization of real events while the other is a fictional Lovecraftian horror story, but ultimately they both start from the same basic point. They follow workers who end up trapped on a deadly oil rig because corporate greed forced them to drill where they shouldn't. And it could be argued that Deepwater Horizon's result is just as bad as, if not worse than, any monster Lovecraft could conceive. Interestingly, Deepwater Horizon even has people comparing the oil well to provoking a sea monster. It actually doesn't seem like that big a stretch to imagine the developers of Still Wakes the Deep were taking inspiration from Deepwater Horizon.