You know that feeling when you scrape the bottom of the Steam barrel and find something so gloriously awful you can’t look away? That’s exactly what happened when I dove into Dark Dominion, a so-called “souls-like” that somehow made me appreciate every single design decision FromSoftware has ever made. The moment you boot it up, the red flags start flying. The cover art is clearly AI-generated. The in-game assets look like they were pulled from a Unity asset flip. But the most damning evidence? The positive reviews — every single one reads like ChatGPT was given a prompt that said “pretend you loved this game.” I refuse to believe real human beings wrote them.
A Masterclass In Everything Wrong With Souls-Like Clones
On the surface, Dark Dominion doesn’t look terrible at first glance. The textures are adequate, the lighting is passable, and the character models almost resemble human proportions. But this is the game equivalent of a skinwalker — it wears the face of a real game while being something far more sinister underneath. The HUD is a direct copy of Elden Ring’s layout. The menu navigation is identical. They didn’t even try to hide it. The combat is somehow worse than the plagiarism suggests. Hitboxes are held together with digital prayers. I witnessed attack animations that teleport across the arena, bosses that literally heal you when you hit them, and a ladder climbing speed that was clearly calibrated to push you past Steam’s two-hour refund window. One boss moonwalked away from me mid-fight without any animation. Another got stuck in the geometry and simply disappeared. I’ve played dozens of souls-likes over the years — from Lords of the Fallen to Mortal Shell to the sprawling world of the IGN Elden Ring Walkthrough — and none of them prepared me for this level of broken. The worst part is that I genuinely cannot tell if certain features are bugs or intended mechanics. Is the random instant death when opening the menu a feature? Is the unskippable cutscene that plays every single time you die a design choice? I genuinely do not know. The game also steals voice lines and sound effects from other titles. I heard sound clips from Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and even Call of Duty Zombies. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of borrowed assets held together with duct tape and hopes. I spent two hours just trying to find a starting weapon, wandering empty corridors before discovering that you have to “search the environment thoroughly” according to a Steam guide that was probably written by the developer’s alt account.
Why This Matters — Even For A Bad Game
The reason I spent fourteen hours documenting this disaster is that these low-effort clones are flooding Steam, confusing new players who might think this is representative of the souls-like genre. It’s not. The genuine article — the real experience of exploration, challenge, and triumph that makes games like Elden Ring special — is worth your time and money. Instead of gambling on AI-generated clones, get cheap Elden Ring items for sale and experience the actual masterpiece. And if you want to stay informed about what’s actually worth playing, follow Elden Ring news and updates for honest coverage. I went in expecting bad. This was obscenely bad. I formally apologize to Dark Souls 2 for every mean thing I’ve ever said. At least DS2 had a soul. This game is a void.