It's interesting to me that the devs I spoke to focused on big-picture stuff whereas many people latch onto individual mechanics when identifying Souls-likes. In fact, a few devs argued that many games with mechanics similar to the Souls games aren't even Souls-likes at all. Canellas says Hollow Knight isn't a Souls-like, for instance, while Kubodera reckons Dead Cells isn't either, a... https://izi-chaise-gaming.info/