The air in the virtual briefing room was thick with the kind of cautious optimism that surrounds a project years from release. We were there to see Genigods: Nezha, a new title from the ambitious indie outfit Genigods Lab, and the year “2028” loomed over every screenshot and concept art slide. In an industry obsessed with the here and now — and shaped just as much by design philosophies as by practical concerns like performance and even PS5 storage limitations — a six-year development runway feels like an eternity. Yet, as co-founders Young Lui and Erdi Yao walked us through their vision, it became clear they aren’t just building a game; they’re trying to solve one of the most contentious problems in modern gaming: difficulty.

The soulslike genre, pioneered by FromSoftware’s apathetic and brutal worlds, is built on a simple, terrifying mantra: “git gud.” It’s a philosophy that has created some of the most dedicated and passionate communities in gaming, but it’s also erected a formidable wall around its treasures. For every player who celebrates felling a monstrous boss after their 50th attempt, there are dozens more who put the controller down after the fifth, alienated by the punishing learning curve. It’s a debate that rages across forums and social media—should these games have an “easy mode”? Genigods Lab’s answer is a resounding, and refreshingly nuanced, “yes and no.” Their solution, however, isn’t coming from another RPG. It’s coming from the high-octane, combo-driven world of Street Fighter 6.

A New Philosophy for Pain: The Fighting Game Blueprint

The challenge for any developer entering the soulslike space is differentiation. How do you honor the legacy of games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring while carving out your own identity? For Genigods Lab, the answer lies in who gets to play. During a Q&A session, I pressed the team on their approach to the genre’s infamous difficulty. The response from Young Lui, the studio’s founder and technical expert, was the most compelling part of the entire presentation. He didn’t talk about nerfing bosses or adding invincibility toggles. He talked about controls.

The Street Fighter 6 Revelation: A Tale of Two Schemes

Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, released in 2023 to critical and commercial acclaim, did something remarkable. It cracked the accessibility nut that had plagued the fighting game genre for decades. For years, the barrier to entry wasn’t just understanding strategy, but mastering the complex, often arcane joystick motions required to execute special moves. Street Fighter 6 introduced “Modern” controls, a simplified scheme that allowed players to perform spectacular moves with a simple button press and a directional input. Crucially, it existed alongside the “Classic” six-button layout that veterans knew and loved. The result? New players felt empowered, not intimidated, and the game’s player base exploded. It sold over 3 million copies in its first seven months, a success widely attributed to this inclusive design.

Genigods Lab is taking that exact philosophy and transposing it into the 3D world of a soulslike.

The “Modern” Path: Your Invitation to the Dance

Lui explained the system with a quiet confidence that suggested this was the foundational pillar of their design. “We want new users to be able to master our combat,” he stated. “We’ve made a control method like ‘Modern’ in Street Fighter 6. By holding R1 and then pressing any key, you can do cool combos easily. This should help new users to start quickly.”

Imagine the implications. One of the core frustrations for a new soulslike player is fumbling a complex button sequence while a ten-ton demon bears down on them. This system removes that execution barrier. A player can hold a single shoulder button as a “modifier” and instantly unleash a multi-hit flurry with the square button, or a powerful guard-breaking slash with the triangle button. It allows them to focus on the more cerebral aspects of combat: timing, spacing, reading enemy attack patterns, and managing stamina. They get to experience the exhilarating rhythm and flow of a high-skill encounter without spending hours in a training room practicing finger gymnastics. It’s not an “easy mode” in the traditional sense; enemies will still hit just as hard. Instead, it’s a “fluent mode,” designed to make the player’s avatar an immediate and intuitive extension of their will.

The “Classic” Soul: Preserving the Brutal Depth

Of course, the moment you mention simplification, the hardcore audience recoils, fearing the game is being “dumbed down” for the masses. Lui was quick to preempt this concern. “Then, for the very good players,” he continued, “we have a ‘Classic’ version, where you can do more combos and combine more moves together.”

This is the other half of the magic formula. The “Classic” control scheme will be the traditional, unfiltered soulslike experience. It will demand precise inputs, manual combo chaining, and a deep understanding of weapon move sets. The developers hinted that this mode would grant access to a wider variety of attacks and more nuanced combinations, providing a higher skill ceiling for those who wish to pursue absolute mastery. This dual-pronged approach is brilliant. It doesn’t patronize new players or alienate veterans. It simply offers two different doorways into the same hostile, beautiful world. It respects that different people find joy in different kinds of challenges—some in strategic decision-making, others in the perfection of mechanical execution.

Beyond Controls: Crafting an Opponent Worthy of a God

An intuitive control scheme is only half the battle. A soulslike is defined by its enemies, particularly its awe-inspiring and terrifying bosses. Here, too, Genigods Lab is aiming to innovate, moving beyond the predictable, pattern-based encounters that have become a genre staple. The team is developing a dynamic AI system with a single, ambitious goal: to make bosses feel less like complex clockwork and more like a real, thinking opponent.

The Soul of a Fighter: An AI That Adapts and Predicts

Erdi Yao, the studio’s co-founder and creative director, elaborated on this vision. The idea is to create boss AI that can observe, learn, and react to the player’s habits. They’ll be programmed to “react, predict, and attempt to counter the player’s actions,” forcing the player to do the same in return.

Think about what this means in practice. If you, the player, constantly rely on a specific three-hit combo after a dodge, a dynamic boss might start to recognize that. On your fourth attempt, it might parry the third hit and deliver a devastating counter-attack. If you favor ranged attacks, it might learn to close the distance more aggressively or deploy a projectile-nullifying shield. This transforms each boss fight from a process of memorizing a static attack pattern into a genuine duel of wits. It’s a mental chess match layered on top of a physical test of reflexes, where you must constantly adapt your strategy and out-think your opponent, not just out-maneuver them. This approach, if successful, could lead to some of the most memorable and emergent encounters in the genre’s history, where every player’s fight against a specific boss could feel unique to their playstyle.

A Distant Vision, Grounded in Next-Gen Tech

All of this grand ambition is, for now, a promise shimmering on a distant 2028 horizon. A lot can change in game development over such a long period. However, the team’s technical targets are firmly planted in the current generation. Genigods: Nezha is being developed primarily for the PlayStation 5, with specific plans to support the rumored “PS5 Pro” with enhanced features.

The Haptic Promise of the DualSense

The developers were particularly enthusiastic about their plans for Sony’s DualSense controller. This isn’t just a bullet point on a feature list; it’s central to their goal of creating an immersive and responsive combat experience. They spoke of using the haptic feedback to convey information—the subtle thrum of a boss powering up a massive attack, the gritty scrape of your sword against a stone golem, or the satisfying thunk of a shield blocking a heavy blow. The adaptive triggers, they explained, could be used to simulate the tension of drawing a bowstring or the resistance of trying to push open a colossal, ancient door. When your controller fights back, the world feels more real, and the stakes feel higher.

A Myth Reborn for a New Age

The game itself is steeped in Chinese mythology, centering on the titular figure of Nezha, a powerful and rebellious protection deity. Known for his fiery temper and incredible martial prowess, often depicted flying on his Wind Fire Wheels while wielding a Fire-Tipped Spear, he is a perfect protagonist for a high-octane action game. This rich cultural wellspring provides a fantastic canvas for creative enemy and world design, promising a setting that feels both fresh and mythologically resonant, a welcome departure from the genre’s common European fantasy tropes — something PlayStation fans have increasingly embraced, whether through bold new IPs or even themed hardware releases like Sony’s recent Astro Bot–branded 5TB drive.

The road to 2028 is long and fraught with peril. The ideas presented by Genigods Lab are bold, innovative, and incredibly difficult to execute. But the vision is undeniably compelling. In a genre at risk of stagnation, where “difficulty” is too often used as a gatekeeping mechanism, Genigods: Nezha is proposing a more inclusive and intelligent way forward. It’s a gamble that, if it pays off, could not only deliver a spectacular game but also fundamentally reshape our conversation about challenge and accessibility, proving that the most punishing worlds can also be the most welcoming.

Source: https://www.techradar.com