The Relic First Guardian: the Korean Soulslike that dares to rethink stamina and memory

The Soulslike has become such a crowded genre that bringing the slightest novelty to it is a feat. The Relic First Guardian takes the bet, with two strong ideas: a memory system based on relics, and a stamina management that goes against the genre's habits. All of it bathes in a dark, spellbinding Korean folklore, still too little exploited in games. The result is a solid and refreshing Soulslike that revolutionises nothing but moves the lines.

The context

The Relic First Guardian is a semi-open-world action RPG developed by Project Cloud Games and published by Perp Games, available on PC via Steam and on PS5 on 31 July 2026, with the Switch 2 and Xbox Series versions following later in the year. The game offers a variation on the Soulslike formula anchored in a dark, haunting atmosphere woven from Korean folklore and ancient mythology. It is that strong cultural identity, still rare in the genre, that immediately gives the title a particular flavour and real potential for attachment.

The gameplay

The game's big idea is its relic system, called Runes, which materialise the memories you collect. Each carries one of over seventy unique passive effects, capable of reshaping the behaviour of your skills, altering the tempo of combat and enhancing specific weapon styles. This customisation-through-memory system is the heart of progression: instead of dumbly upgrading stats, you shape your character by assembling relics that genuinely transform how it fights. It is rich, it invites experimentation, and it gives each build its own identity.

The other find, subtler but fundamental, concerns stamina. Unlike the genre's tradition, attacking never consumes your stamina gauge, reserved only for defence and dodging. Skills, meanwhile, run on cooldowns, with no resource cost. That choice profoundly changes the rhythm of fights: aggression is no longer curbed by the fear of emptying your bar, and stamina becomes a purely defensive concern, a shield to manage rather than a fuel to ration. The result is a combat more fluid and more offensive than the genre average, while keeping the demand that gives the Soulslike its zest.

The semi-open world offers a good balance between exploration and direction, without the heaviness of a sprawling open world or the strict linearity of a corridor. You explore, you fight, you collect memories, and the structure encourages curiosity without ever losing the player. The atmosphere, dark and steeped in Korean mythology, carries the whole with real personality, and early feedback praises gripping action and genuine craft in the staging of combat.

The game's limits lie in its nature as a solid rather than revolutionary offering. Despite its welcome ideas, The Relic First Guardian remains a Soulslike that ticks the genre's expected boxes without fully transcending them, and veterans will find familiar patterns. Some rough edges inherent to a modest studio are felt, in the finish or the balance of certain passages. But these reservations do not weigh heavily against the freshness of its systems and the strength of its world.

The tech

Technically, The Relic First Guardian cares for its atmosphere, which is its greatest strength. The dark, haunting art direction, nourished by Korean folklore, sets a coherent and spellbinding world that sets the game apart from the mass of more generic Soulslikes. The staging of combat and environments conveys a real sense of atmosphere, and it is that visual and cultural identity that stays in memory.

The technical reservations are those of an ambitious production with limited means. The production, solid, does not reach the level of the genre's biggest, and a few imperfections betray the studio's scale. But the whole runs correctly and effectively serves its subject, without betraying immersion through major flaws. For a studio of this size, the displayed ambition and the coherence of execution command respect.

The verdict

The Relic First Guardian is a solid and refreshing Soulslike, which brings two welcome ideas to the genre: a rich relic system that personalises combat through memory, and a rethought stamina management that frees aggression without sacrificing demand. Carried by a dark, singular Korean folklore world, still rare in games, it offers a gripping experience and a real personality that set it apart from the competition.

Its limits lie in its status as a fine offering rather than a revolution: it remains a Soulslike with familiar patterns, with a few rough edges proper to a modest studio. But in its register, it moves the lines intelligently and delivers an adventure genre fans would be wrong to skip. A Soulslike that dares to rethink its fundamentals and does so with taste is worth lingering over.

A Korean Soulslike that rethinks stamina and memory intelligently, solid and refreshing if not revolutionary.

Score: 7.5/10

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Reviewed on the PC version.