Ashen

Easily one of my favorite games of all time. It's beautiful, sounds amazing and the difficulty is just the right amount of tough. Paired with co-op, you're bound to have a wonderful time with a friend. Of course there's a couple things I don't like or wish were different but overall it's a 8/10 for me. Some of these reviews are complaining it's "not a real souls game" or something ridiculous like that and I'm glad. The souls community is one of the most toxic communities in gaming. Give the game a try and if you don't like the first 2 hours of it then refund. Easy. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the scenery, take on all the quests and be awed by inspiration.

Ashen is a quietly captivating entry in the Soulslike family, blending the punishing combat and exploration of FromSoftware’s formula with a minimalist art style and a refreshing emphasis on co-op companionship. While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it refines the core experience into something uniquely meditative and subtly emotional.
Combat in Ashen is deliberate and tactical, emphasizing stamina management, timing, and positioning. Enemies hit hard, and your attacks feel weighty but fair. Unlike some Soulslikes, Ashen tends to keep things a bit slower and less frantic, encouraging players to read enemy patterns and strike with patience.
Weapon variety is decent, ranging from light spears and swords to heavy two-handed axes. Each weapon has unique movesets and attack speeds, and the dodge-roll mechanic is reliable, making evasion rewarding. The absence of shields or heavy armor choices nudges players toward a more mobile and reactive playstyle.
Where Ashen truly distinguishes itself is in its open-world design. The landscapes are vast, sprawling, and marked by muted earth tones and stylized, cel-shaded visuals that feel both timeless and painterly. There’s a quiet melancholy to the world, a place where ruins stand as silent witnesses to forgotten civilizations.
Exploration is non-linear, with hidden caves, ruins, and NPC encounters scattered throughout the environment. The game’s minimalist HUD and narrative style encourage players to interpret the world on their own terms.
A standout feature of Ashen is its emphasis on companionship. NPCs you meet can join your journey as AI-controlled allies, assisting in combat and exploration. Additionally, the game supports seamless online co-op, where players can summon friends or strangers to help tackle tougher challenges.
This sense of shared struggle creates a rare and meaningful social dynamic in a genre often associated with isolation. Moments of silent cooperation add warmth to an otherwise stark and desolate world.
The story is deliberately vague, revealed through environmental storytelling, brief NPC dialogue, and item descriptions. Themes of survival, legacy, and connection run quietly beneath the surface. The game trusts players to piece together its lore without overt exposition, which may frustrate some but rewards careful attention and exploration.
Ashen offers a distinctive take on the Soulslike formula—one that replaces gothic horror with open skies, and loneliness with companionship. It’s a thoughtful, atmospheric journey that’s as much about the people you meet as the enemies you defeat. While some may find its combat less deep or its story too sparse, those drawn to quiet exploration and subtle emotional beats will find a hauntingly beautiful experience.
Pros:
-Unique cel-shaded art style with stunning environments
-Seamless co-op and AI companion system enrich gameplay
-Balanced, tactical combat rewarding patience
-Open-world design encourages exploration
-Minimalist storytelling adds mystery and depth
Cons:
-Combat can feel slower or less varied than other Soulslikes
-Sparse narrative may leave some wanting more
-Some technical hiccups and occasional camera issues
-Limited weapon and armor variety
Ashen is a Soulslike for those who prefer companionship over solitude and open horizons over claustrophobic castles. A quiet, beautiful, and often moving adventure worth experiencing.
Rating: 7/10

I don't think this game deserves mixed. Def not overwhelmingly positive but it should be positive. It takes a while to get the hang of and the tutorial is kinda terrible but its actually great after that.

Ashen looks like a dark souls type of game.
Reality is slightly different. The maniability is close. But game design and art direction are not a from software game.
Devs removed complex stats or hidden mechanics. Quests are simple and straight forward. Some people here are complaining about this. Probably because they think everything has to be painful and super challenging.
And I think this is why ashen is great. Not looking like a dark fantasy we have seen 400 times. Simplified build and combats. The game can be finished in 20h without rushing. The coop is great and very easy to access. I have done the whole game like this and we enjoyed a lot.
To sum it up, it is a very good game when you have a dark souls overdose or to make discover the genre to someone with a nice difficulty curve without frightening them.
It is an excellent choice during sales.

I will start this review by stating the most important piece of information you need to know before buying this game. Ashen is a great co-op soulslike that rewards exploration, skill expression and different playstyles. Albeit, the difference is not vast in terms of character building but there are for sure options for different kinds of players.
So this game is not very long and I think to some this could be a negative but imo I think this is a great pro in it because it encourages more replay-ability and there's a value there if you've played the game you will know what I mean. So there's room for experimentation and it isn't too punishing if you want to try different playstyles before committing to one, but as with all soulslikes you will need to commit to a weapon and armor if you want to have a chance at the late game.
The exploration is really nice and rewarding with the different landscapes and the amount of hidden loot and platforming you need to do to collect everything is actually staggering but in an amazing way because it always seems like there's a corner you didn't look around or some hidden platform that you need to notice let a lone figure out how to reach this platform and then return from it to where you were before.
The boss fights are not that plentiful but the ones that are present are absolutely memorable and contain both high mechanical impact as well as story impacts. Speaking of which, the story is really easy to follow which is a breath of fresh air to be able to follow a story from start to finish in a soulslike game and it is kind of generic and for sure a case can be made that it's heavily inspired by darksouls but I would say it's distinct enough to be borrowing some elements but at the same time doing it's own thing.
Finally the co-op is kind of dodgy at time but with almost 25 hours in the game, it worked just fine with me and my friend and we were able to play through the entire game together, apart from one slight hitch where I killed a boss when he died to and so we couldn't do the boss fight again because there's no single instance of one player or the other so I had to wait for my friend to kill the boss to be on the same quest step together. So just watch out in instances like this.
I do recommend this game for someone who's looking for an entry level soulslike even alone, especially if you have someone to play with through this game. And for the price that this game is at and the effort the devs put into it, I really do think this game is a steal and should be at least considered by most people if not outright recommended to give it a try for how much it's worth the asking price. Doubly so if it's on sale which it is on the regular.

All the bad reviews over game crashes! Easy fix go offline! No crashes for me, other than that great game bought it on pc and console!

if you can ignore the broken online functionality on Steam version, then it is a must play game for dark souls fan, however... do keep in mind that:
1. there are no parry
2. no usual stats allocation, your character growth is largely affected by completing side quest
3. input buffer is worse than dark souls 3, so do not attempt to button mashing
otherwise is one of the unique dark souls clone that encourage coop play, offline? you got AI companion! though they play exactly like fromsoft NPC AI