In this article, we’ll be talking about Lost Soul Aside, a hack-and-slash ARPG developed by UltiZero Games. If you’ve spent some time going through a Devil May Cry or Final Fantasy XV rabbit hole in 2016, chances are, you might already be familiar with Lost Soul Aside, which is a game inspired by both. The combination might sound surprising since the two games couldn’t be more different in terms of gameplay and design. But that blend is now nearing the end of its development and is honestly part of what makes Lost Soul Aside so interesting for me. After years of development, the game is now looking at a 2025 release, basically ending nearly a decade of waiting.
Though the game was originally revealed in 2016 as a solo project created by Yang Bing, Lost Soul Aside immediately turned heads with its stunning visuals and ambitious concept. Its impressive debut caught the attention of PlayStation, which not only backed the project but also helped establish developer UltiZero Games to bring the vision to life. Since then, it has become one of the most anticipated titles under PlayStation’s China Hero Project which is an initiative designed to support Asian developers in creating unique and innovative games. Let’s first get into more detail on the game’s development.
Development
What started as a passion project by Yang Bing back in 2014 has turned into something much bigger: Lost Soul Aside. Inspired by Final Fantasy Versus XIII (which eventually became Final Fantasy XV), Yang began working on the game solo, and that passion project eventually led to the founding of Ultizero Games, a Shanghai-based studio established in 2017. By November 2022, the team had grown to over 40 people with the studio’s entirety focused on bringing Lost Soul Aside to life.
Though Yang Bing started working on it in 2014, things only really started picking up in 2016 when Yang shared an early prototype of the game. It was built using Unreal Engine 4, with some assets from the Unreal Marketplace, and the footage made waves online. This actually caught the attention of many publishers including Sony who then reached out to him and added the project to their China Hero Project, which supports promising Chinese developers like I’ve mentioned before. Thanks to financial backing from Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Shanghai branch, Yang was able to turn his solo effort into a full-fledged studio. In 2021, Tencent also jumped on board with additional funding, giving the team even more resources to work with.
By 2019, Sony described the game’s development as “stable and healthy,” which was reassuring for the people who had been keeping tabs on the development of the project. Then, in November 2022, Sony announced they would officially be publishing Lost Soul Aside. The game is now set to launch in 2025, after many years of wait. Who says dreams don’t come true?
Even though the first prototype was mostly made on Unreal’s marketplace assets, Yang has always been clear about wanting the final version to be 100% original, and the team has worked hard to make that happen. In a 2022 interview, Yang mentioned Demon’s Souls by Bluepoint Games as a visual inspiration, especially for its effects and overall polish. With the team now working on a PlayStation 5 version, Lost Soul Aside has pretty much come a long way from its humble beginnings and is now something concrete.
Visuals and Soundtrack
The game is inspired by a lot of games that came before it. One of its most prominent inspirations being Final Fantasy XV. Aesthetically, Kazer’s (the protagonist of the Lost Soul Aside) overall design looks similar to Noctis'. Even his personality seems to be based on early Noctis from the few footages I’ve watched. And that’s not all. In one of the gameplay footage that was released for the game, he gets shot at and attacked by automatons that really remind me of the Magitek soldiers of the Niflheim Empire. And in one footage, Kazer gets into a fight with a white haired guy who was clad in white and carried a golden sword, which reminded me heavily of Ravus Nox Fleuret. Heck, even their dynamics looks very similar.
The guy in white looks like he hates Kazer similar to how Ravus hates Noctis. I don’t think it ends with just the visual aesthetics and dynamics too. I also feel that the soundtrack is potentially based on Final Fantasy XV’s soundtrack too. If you’re familiar with FFXV’s soundtrack and you’ve watched Lost Soul Aside’s most recent trailer that dropped in December, you could hear the resemblance in the song used in the trailer with FFXV’s Somnus, which was played during one of the game’s final moments. The melancholic tune of the song just really suits the despair and the destruction in that trailer and I think it fits really well.
Now the gameplay, or rather, the combat is where they really put in the most effort here. People have mentioned seeing glimpses of Ninja Gaiden in this game and I agree. It’s also where you can see how Devil May Cry inspired it too. Watching the gameplay footage, I can see it has that signature stylish gameplay DMC is known for. And it also looks like you can switch between playstyles similarly to how Dante can switch styles and Devil Arms. Some of Kazer’s attacks look very similar to Dante’s moveset, especially when he is using his Devil Sword namesake, Dante. You can also see glimpses of Kazer’s afterimage when he dodges, as well as lines being traced across enemies as he blinks in and out of frame, which is very similar to Vergil’s Judgment cuts. Kazer even has melee moves that look similar to Vergil’s Beowulf moveset which is honestly a very interesting thing to see. As a fan of the DMC series, it certainly does feel like discovering easter eggs. One thing that I am sure was inspired by Devil May Cry is what looks like a style gauge.
For those who aren’t familiar, the Style Gauge is one of the few things the Devil May Cry series is known for. It’s a gauge that fills up when you land a successful attack, dodge successfully, and maintain a combo. To fill it up quick, you’ll actually need to chain combos because it’ll stop filling up if the game notices that you’re just spamming the same attack over and over. This is pretty much Devil May Cry’s way of encouraging its players to be creative with their combos and chain them all without getting hit. And what’s also noticeable is how smooth and fast the combat is, and how quickly you can chain your combos. In a demo footage I saw, it looked like Kazer was zipping through the battlefield, slashing at many enemies in multiple directions.
What I liked about the combat was how it looked really clean despite the fact that a lot of things were happening at the same time. It didn’t go too overboard with the effects and the particle explosions which sometimes makes it really hard to see where your character is or what’s actually happening. Looking at the enemies you face off in the game, it seems they won’t just be like those run-of-the-mill types who try to approach you and hit you with a stick or something simple like that. Most of the enemies I’ve seen in the footage available have actual mechanics that you’ll need to watch out for, which is another thing that was promising for me. We wouldn’t want a game that’s too easy now, would we?
In terms of exploration, I’ve seen some posts about how this game was marketed early on as an open-world game. I’m not sure if that’s still true now, because from what I’ve seen, it seems like more of a large zone, linear kind of game instead of an expansive open world which I hope is actually the case. I don’t think a game like this would work in an open-world setting since the areas in the footage just look so empty. It’s like, the only reason why they have huge spaces in the first place was so it could handle battles with multiple enemies and so you may see where you can pick up the loot dropped by enemies more properly. Based on Yang Bing’s statements during 2023’s ChinaJoy, the game might actually be linear if you follow the main path but you’ll also have pathways you can explore. My take on this is that it’s probably an explorable large zone where you can find hidden places that have hidden bonuses like secret bosses or something. Or maybe you can stumble upon a side quest or like a door that has some sort of challenge behind it. I just hope this isn’t an open world. It’d be better for it to be more like Devil May Cry 5’s exploration than have an empty open world where there’s nothing really going on like what they did to Final Fantasy XV.
Now we all know that the game will be released this 2025. There’s no exact date yet, but we’ll probably get something concrete soon. Something I want to talk about though is PlayStation’s move to publish this game directly while making it available on PC day one. It’s something that is honestly very out of character for Sony to do, especially with their habit of delaying the PC release for PlayStation exclusive titles. You’d usually have to wait 1-2 years before it lands on the PC. An example of this is Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 which was released back in October 2023 for the PS5, and it’s only about to be released for the PC at the end of January, which is actually more than a year of waiting time. This move kind of does spark plenty of speculation.
One thing that could have possibly happened is that UltiZero Games might have pushed for the PC day one release for it to broaden the game’s reach. Or maybe this is the first step to another way to make money from the games they publish. Either way, launching a new IP this way is quite the change for PlayStation, given how their usual approach is with single-player exclusives. This shift might actually suggest new strategies moving forward. Looking at 2025, Lost Soul Aside seems positioned as a secondary-tier PlayStation release compared to other high-profile titles. But it still adds some sort of variety and depth to the lineup, which is really important after a pretty weak 2024 lineup. Games like Ghosts of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, and Stellar Blade are helping to flesh out the PlayStation catalog, and Sony is hoping it’ll make for an interesting year for players.
Final Thoughts
Overall I do like what I see. Especially the combat since it’s fast-paced and full of stylish action where you can chain lots of combos together into one huge combo, which really brings back the vibe of hack-and-slash games. It’s refreshing to see this kind of gameplay making a comeback, especially with how every other developer is trying to make a game with Soulslike mechanics nowadays. They have pretty much been taking over the ARPG genre lately. Sure, those games are tons of fun and I’m not really complaining. I am a huge fan of soulslikes, but there’s just something about combat that lets you mess around with combos and abilities however you want without getting punished severely for one slip-up. It’s the kind of flexibility that hack-and-slash action game fans have definitely been missing.
Exploration-wise, we don’t really know much to say anything. It’s been pretty bland, just jumping around, surfing on your sword, gliding, nothing too special to mention. I just hope it’s not an open-world since levels do feel large but kinda empty. But hey, some of the footage I’ve seen was from way back, so maybe they’ve since made some changes. And I guess in terms of customization we can probably expect to be able to upgrade our weapons and maybe have skill trees.
The real question though, is whether the story can keep up with how good the gameplay looks. There really isn’t much that was revealed regarding the game’s story. All I know is that Kazer embarked on a quest to save his sister and prevent the world from being taken over my beings from another dimension. It sounds really vague and a bit boring if that’s all there is to it. I’m sure there’s more though. It’s just that a lot of visually stunning games tend to fall flat when it comes to the narrative, but there’s hope this one delivers something solid from start to finish.
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