Soulstice is a massive, massive game that probably goes on just a tad too long for its own good. But that doesn’t mean it’s not done telling its story. In fact, it seems plausible that Reply Game Studios is already plotting a sequel.
Now, before I get into this, there are two things that I need to make clear.
- I’m going to try to be as spoiler-lite as possible here, but I will have to talk about the game’s ending at least a little bit.
- I don’t have any official information about Reply’s plans on this; everything I’m about to say is pure speculation on my part. (I did reach out to my contact at Reply/Modus, but their response was basically that they have nothing to announce at the moment in this regard.)
Okay, so we cool? Cool.
Soulstice takes place in and around the once-mighty city of Ilden. A Tear opened up in the sky above the city, causing all sorts of monstrosities to spill out and wreak havoc. That’s an overly simple way of explaining what’s happening in the game, but it’s important to at least know this much.
However, in the Canticles of the Keepers (an in-world text that’s referenced throughout the game), it is stated that: “Three the mighty battles fought and won by the Champions of Man. Three the sacred cities that were built in those hallowed places.” So there are three sacred cities in this world, and Ilden is just one of them. The other two, in case you’re wondering, are called Doran and Rheim.
If you see the current game through to the end, you’ll find a crystal at the source of the tear in Ilden. At the end of Chapter 23, Layton references the other sacred cities, to which Lute responds: “Oh no! if this crystal is what the Canticle was referring to… There must be two more crystals, in Doran and even in Rheim!” (If you want to refresh your memory on your conversations with Layton, I’ve transcribed every single one of them to create a handy lore reference.)
You see where I’m going with this, right?
The ending of the game makes it pretty explicit that, after the Tear in Ilden is closed, two more open up, one over Doran and one over Rheim. Briar and Lute rush off to confront whatever challenges lie in these cities. Then, a new character (who was technically introduced a little earlier than this) shows up, Kordellia the Reaper, with a stated goal of killing Briar and Lute.
That’s basically where the game ends. So you have two more Tears open up, and a new formidable foe introduced. I should point out that I beat the game on Human (the easiest difficulty), and it’s possible that once you unlock the hardest difficulty, more story will be revealed, perhaps with an extended version of the ending. However, they set up way too much in the final moments of this game for it to all be resolved in additional cutscenes.
So Reply is absolutely trying to set up more story. The only question is how that story is going to be delivered.
It’s possible that there will be story DLC to wrap all this up, but personally, I suspect something else. I think Soulstice was designed to be a trilogy. This works if each game focuses around one of the three sacred cities.
From a development standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. Each city can have a unique visual aesthetic and layout, a prospect that is less resource-intensive when stretched across three games instead of crammed into one. By focusing on just a single city for the first game, Reply can fine-tune the look and feel of the city and keep the whole game looking somewhat consistent (which they’ve done, for the most part). Then, they can start from the ground up for the second city, then later the third.
So yeah, I really do think this is intended to be a trilogy, but I also think Reply is waiting to see what the reception is for the first game before committing wholly to a second one. Whether or not Soulstice gets a sequel, then, is up to the player base in a sense.
We’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out, but my money is on this being a trilogy. As long as the first game doesn’t bomb (it’s too early to tell what game sales are going to look like), I’m pretty sure the next game will be set in Doran, with the final game being set in Rheim.
