Starting a Souls Game Without Quitting in the First Hour
The habits that separate players who bounce off Souls games from those who get through them, from someone who bounced off three times first.
The short answer
Most people quit Souls games because they treat combat like an action game and attack when they see an opening rather than after an enemy has committed. Learning to walk away from a fight you are losing, levelling the stat your weapon actually scales with, and exploring around a wall rather than through it resolve the majority of early frustration. Difficulty in these games is mostly a patience problem, not a reflex problem.
Verified and last updated August 12, 2026.
- Time needed
- 14 min
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Read time
- 3 min
I bounced off Souls games three times before one of them stuck. Every time, the reason was the same: I was playing them like action games.
In an action game, an opening is an invitation. In a Souls game, an opening is usually bait, and the correct response to most of them is to do nothing.
The one habit that changes everything
Attack after an enemy has committed to a full animation, not when they pause. A pause is a feint or a recovery you cannot punish. A committed swing is a window with a known length.
Why people quit, and what to do instead
Level the stat your weapon uses
This is the single most mechanical trap in the genre and it has no learning value whatsoever.
Every weapon scales with one or two stats. A weapon that scales with strength will do almost nothing in the hands of a character who has been levelling dexterity, regardless of the weapon's own numbers.
Check the weapon's scaling letters. Level the stat it wants. Nothing else in this article is as immediately effective.
Learn to walk away
Beating your head against one boss for ninety minutes teaches you very little after the first ten attempts. What you are doing at that point is grinding out a low-probability run rather than improving.
The better move, particularly in the open-world entries:
- Leave the area
- Explore somewhere you have not been
- Come back four levels higher with a better weapon and a new consumable
- Notice the fight is now manageable
This is not cheating. The game is built around it. The entire open structure exists so that a wall can be walked around.
Stamina is the real health bar
New players watch their health. Experienced players watch their stamina.
Being at low health with full stamina is recoverable. Being at full health with empty stamina means you cannot roll, cannot block and cannot attack, and the next hit lands for free.
Leave stamina in reserve. Two attacks and a roll, not four attacks and hope.
Use your consumables
Almost everyone finishes their first playthrough with a bag full of unused items they were saving for a harder moment that never got harder.
Most consumables in these games are renewable. Use the buff. Use the throwable. The boss that would have been trivial with a resistance item is not more impressive for having beaten it without.
What works
What doesn't
Key takeaways
If you want more games with this kind of depth, the single-player recommendations has adjacent suggestions.
Frequently asked questions
Am I supposed to be dying this much?
Yes, and it is worth internalising that early. Dying in these games costs you a walk back and some currency, and it teaches you a pattern you did not know. The design assumes repeated attempts. Players who treat each death as a failure burn out; players who treat it as information get through.
Should I look up a build?
For a first playthrough, look up which stat your chosen weapon scales with and nothing else. Following a full build guide removes the discovery that makes these games worth playing, but not knowing that your weapon scales with a stat you have not levelled is a purely mechanical trap with no learning value.
Can I skip a boss I cannot beat?
In the open-world entries, almost always, and you should. Going somewhere else, levelling up, finding a better weapon and returning is a legitimate and intended strategy. In the older linear games it is less often possible, but even there, exploring for an alternate route usually finds something.
Do I need to be good at action games?
Not particularly. Souls combat rewards patience and pattern recognition far more than reaction speed. Players who come from fast action games often struggle initially because their instinct is to fill every gap with an attack, which is exactly the habit these games punish. Slower players frequently do better.
About the author
Competitive & Settings Editor
Dan played CS:GO semi-professionally in a regional ESEA Main roster between 2017 and 2020, and has hit Radiant in VALORANT in three separate acts. He now spends most of his competitive energy on the unglamorous side of the game: input latency, sensitivity consistency and warm-up routines that actually transfer.
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