The Relic: First Guardian Preview: 70-Plus Bosses in an Open-World Soulslike
The preview highlights how The Relic: First Guardian distinguishes itself from typical soulslikes by removing death penalties and resource management, while still delivering the genre's signature high difficulty and boss encounters.
Reporting from 1 source: 4Gamer.net.
4Gamer.net previewed The Relic: First Guardian, a dark fantasy action RPG from Korean developer Project Cloud Games, ahead of its July 31 release on PS5. The open-world game features over 70 bosses called Brutes, stamina-based combat that only drains on defense and dodge, and cooldown-driven skills. The preview build showed unstable graphics and noted UI and map issues.
The Relic: First Guardian is a dark fantasy action RPG from Korean studio Project Cloud Games, set in the world of Alsirtus, which a mysterious disease has pushed to the brink of collapse. Players take on the role of the first guardian and set out on a journey to save it, exploring an open world right from the start.
Combat follows soulslike conventions, but with a twist: stamina is only consumed by defense and dodging, not attacks, and skills run on cooldowns instead of mana. There is no leveling through experience points, and dying carries no penalty beyond respawning at the last checkpoint. The game's main draw is its 70-plus bosses, called Brutes, which appear frequently during exploration and questing.
The preview build showed some rough edges, including unstable graphics, a small item-selection UI, and a lack of tutorial guidance. The game launches on PS5 on July 31, with Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S versions planned for late 2026.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.