Articles Death's Door

The soulslike genre owes its existence to Demon's Souls, released by FromSoftware in 2009. A PlayStation exclusive, it first earned a cult following among hardcore players in its homeland of Japan. From its core mechanics, FromSoftware's lead designer Hidetaka Miyazaki built a new game — Dark Souls — which launched a series that became iconic the world over. Soon the "soulslikes" started arriving: games that copy the Dark Souls formula of success. An entire genre was born, built on the hallmarks of Dark Souls — punishing difficulty, "bonfires" (checkpoints for saving and leveling up), enemies that respawn on a location once you die, collecting experience ("souls"), stamina management in combat, fragmentary storytelling, and — most importantly — gruelling boss fights that force you to learn every move set.

Handheld PCs like Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally are rapidly gaining popularity, but in 2026 more and more games refuse to run well on them without serious graphical compromises. For example, the recent The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered and Doom: The Dark Ages leave a lot to be desired even on the powerful Asus ROG Ally X, let alone the weaker Steam Deck or the standard ROG Ally. That is why we decided to prepare a selection of the best games for modern handheld PCs — projects that do not force players to seriously sacrifice visual quality for optimal performance.