When players think of a good Soulslike game not made by developer FromSoftware, recent titles like Lies of P and Black Myth: Wukong come up as titles that reflect the action RPG gameplay of the studio’s modern hits. However, few games have dared to imitate FromSoft’s earliest formulas, especially from the company’s early work before even Demon’s Souls was released. The recently released Queen’s Domain does exactly that, borrowing mechanics and aesthetics from King’s Field, arguably the game that laid the foundation for FromSoft’s incredibly revered library.
Created by a group called Freshly Baked Games, Queen’s Domain is a fantasy action RPG with retro-style graphics, deliberately scaled down to look like something that would come out on the original PlayStation. Players are thrust into an adventure to find their lost father, diving into the Isle of Neasied, where monsters and a slumbering Queen are beginning to awaken. Sitting at an “Overwhelmingly Positive” review rating on Steam right now, this title is being praised extensively for its interconnected world design and solid combat systems that reflect some of the best Soulslike experiences out there.
Queen’s Domain Takes Inspiration From King’s Field, the First Soulslike Fromsoftware Created
Being called the “true successor” to FromSoftware’s King’s Field series, Queen’s Domain is a truly impressive game, taking elements of the original Soulslike and molding them into something modern audiences can love. King’s Field was innovative for just how immersive it was, with revolutionary environmental audio design and cryptic world building that was based on real-time movements within a 3D space. Unlike the many 2D, turn-based CRPGs at the time, King’s Field was free of blocks or grids, instead using 3D polygons to shape a realistic looking world that players could interact with freely. This is the game where the Souls series’ classic Moonlight Greatsword was first seen, as well as other tropes FromSoft would use in all their games.
Other King’s Field inspirations can be found in the gameplay of Queen’s Domain, mainly within its RPG systems. Queen’s Domain consists of first-person action, a far cry from the third-person perspective adopted in games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Players can collect a huge variety of melee weapons that suit their play style, as well as a number of secondary weapons for throwing or traversal. Every action in the game is directed by a strict stamina bar, reflecting older game design that relied entirely on straightforward resource systems. Although every weapon in Queen’s Domain has special properties and abilities too, this simple approach adds to the title’s retro feel.
Leveling up in Queen’s Domain helps you deal with the many enemy types on the Isle of Neasied, with stats increasing to further support a custom character build. Once again, this reflects FromSoft’s unique foundation, where players can respawn over and over to grind levels to gradually build up a gameplay identity as they progress. The Stamina bar is also a mirror to how King’s Field changed the genre, as it traded dice rolls for real-time resources based on weapon strength, character stats, and attack timing rather than pre-determined numeric attack values.
Deliberately Retro Visuals & Gameplay Ideas Combine With Excellent World Design to Build an Impressive Soulslike
“Retro” is a term you’ll think many times while playing Queen’s Domain, both due to the already mentioned visuals and the ambient soundtrack that feels distinct to a particular era of gaming. The setting of Queen’s Domain is lush in its geography with dense jungles and stone ruins mixing together to create the island you’ll be navigating throughout your adventure. Much like the best of FromSoftware’s biggest hits, the Isle of Neasied is a vast, interconnected space, where areas lead back to one another to make sense of a large labyrinth of locations. In many ways, Queen’s Domain feels like the first Dark Souls in this regard, whose points of crossover between different areas were incredibly natural to the world’s level design.
Players can go around the world of Queen’s Domain using a mechanic unique to the game — a flying power tied to a Holy Sword weapon. This ability lets you dash across gaps in the environment, similar to a grappling hook found in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The comparisons to that Nintendo classic continue when you find out your progression is also tied to solving environmental puzzles, with other traversal powers needed to overcome specific obstacles. The ability to quickly dart across ledges quickly opens up the world, letting you explore it unorthodox ways. That being said, the combat also feels like a blast from the past, with first-person fighting boiling down to baiting attacks and finding windows to retaliate.
The rhythm of combat in Queen’s Domain gets better as you obtain new abilities, with the timing of those skills adding new layers to what you can do to defeat various enemy types. Over 100 different kinds of enemies keeps combat engaging, as enemies are drawn to you based on proximity similar to a Soulslike or something like The Elder Scrolls series. The secondary abilities of weapons encourages some experimentation here, letting you find your own strategies to dealing with the game’s biggest threats. The retro gameplay designs here are purposefully restrictive, even if you don’t lose items and can save the game whenever you want.
Greater Emphasis on Exploration Makes Queen’s Domain Feel Quite Different From a Pure Action RPG
King’s Field may have been the prototype for the Soulslike genre, but Queen’s Domain is proof that its style was far different from the type of games players expect out of that classification. To be honest, Queen’s Domain shares more traits with a Metroidvania than any pure Soulslike, making exploration a key part of gameplay rather than the action RPG encounters with enemies. Despite the lo-res graphics, Queen’s Domain constructs itself a far larger world than King’s Field could have ever dreamed, with a larger map with tons of secrets and interconnected points for players to see.
With a very FromSoft-inspired dedication to extensive in-game lore and world building in its story too, this game is one that stands tall among many titles that forged the overall idea of a Soulslike. Careful design makes your adventure a constant series of discoveries, with solved puzzles and new traversal abilities giving you new ways to explore at nearly every step of the game. These facts alone make Queen’s Domain a truly interesting variation on games that try to mirror FromSoft’s work, acting like a successor to King’s Field rather than another play on Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring.
What do you think of Queen’s Domain‘s retro style and inspirations? Let us know in the comments below!
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