With so many games coming out throughout any given year, there are some that inevitably fly under the radar, especially new IPs that don’t have the push of an established franchise to prop them up. Thankfully, events like gamescom are the perfect opportunity to discover these gems, and, as last year’s show put One More Game’s Valor Mortis on my radar, this year’s gave me the opportunity to play one of the few games that truly seems to deserve the Soulslike tag.

In many ways, Eschatology Entertainment’s Guns of Eschaton is one of the few games that truly captures what FromSoftware did in the original Dark Souls, doing away with the fast-paced formula of modern Soulslikes to deliver a slow, deliberate, and almost evocative experience in a rather unique setting.

While the final vision of the legendary Viktor Antonov would have stood out already for its incredibly strong art direction, Guns of Eschaton has a lot to offer under it. As soon as I picked up the controller during the test session I was invited to during gamescom 2026, I could tell this was a sort of different game. After picking a character archetype focused on parrying that gave me a selection of abilities, including a bullet-time ability with a successful parry, something that won’t be in the final game as players will have full freedom for their character build, I couldn’t help but notice how weighty the Gunslinger’s movement feels, even when running. This allowed me to get more immersed in the Old West town I was venturing toward, taking in the ruined building and the apparent absence of life.

However, it did not take long for me to meet the first enemy, and it’s here that Guns of Eschaton felt the most like the original Dark Souls, even with its first-person view and gun-based gameplay. For starters, attacking blindly causes little damage and eventually leads to failure, as the revolver must be reloaded manually. Additionally, before every shot, the gun had to be cocked, so taking random shots isn’t the way to go. To deal serious damage to enemies, the player has to shoot some of their parts in the order highlighted by a codex, which the Gunslinger can take out even during fights. The developer assisting me during the test told me that the full information of an enemy’s weak points is always available even when the enemy is encountered for the first time, so there will never be any guesswork involved.

Getting used to such complexity in a short time wasn’t easy, so the first few gunfights went horribly bad. However, as I got more used to these mechanics, I started appreciating what Eschatology is going for quite a bit. With a decent enemy variety even in such a small slice and a level design that aims to teach patience to the player due to snipers hiding on buildings, much like any good Soulslike does, it feels like Guns of Eschaton will demand the best from the player, which is a great thing in my book. Too many games try to help the player too much, removing the friction needed for a game to be compelling. I expect this uncompromising nature will not make Guns of Eschaton immediately popular, but a certain audience will embrace it, as I expect to.

Ending with an intense boss battle against a flying eye creature governed by the same shooting mechanics seen against normal enemies, the Guns of Eschaton demo left me incredibly satisfied, so much so that it made the game my third best of the show, together with Valor Mortis, right below Final Fantasy VII Revelation and Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. We still do not know if the game will make its announced 2026 release, but no matter when, I will be ready for a game I never expected would carry the torch of the original Dark Souls.

About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack.

After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi “Suda51” Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA’s president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3.

When he’s not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.

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