Nine Sols, the Sekiro-inspired action platformer from Red Candle Games, is currently 60% off on Steam, bringing its price down to $12. The discount runs until May 18, making this one of the better deals on a genuinely excellent game you can grab this week. If you've been sitting on the fence about picking it up, this is a hard window to ignore. For fans of action-heavy soulslike games, you might also want to check out Sollarion for another taste of punishing, rewarding combat.
What makes $12 feel like a bargain
Nine Sols sits comfortably among the best Sekiro-style games released in the last few years. The core combat loop centers on precise parrying and the Unbounded Counter, a mechanic where you hold the block button and release it at the right moment to deflect incoming blows. It adds a layer of read-and-react tension to every boss encounter that most parry games don't bother with, because you can only hold the counter for so long. Timing matters more than reflexes alone.
The boss fights themselves are consistently strong across the game's roughly 20-hour runtime. That's the key here: this isn't a game padded out to justify a higher price. Twenty hours, tight pacing, and a final act that actually sticks the landing.
What most players miss going in is how much the story carries the experience. Red Candle Games built its reputation on horror titles before Nine Sols, and that background bleeds into the world of New Kunlun. The setting is grim and layered, and protagonist Yi gets genuine character development across the runtime. He starts as a rage-consumed figure on a vengeance quest and grows into something more complicated. For a soulslike, that's rarer than it should be.
If you enjoy Hollow Knight or have been waiting on Silksong, Nine Sols shares enough DNA with those games to feel familiar while doing its own thing with the combat. The metroidvania structure and atmospheric world-building will click immediately.
The soulslike deal context
At full price, Nine Sols sits at $30. That's already reasonable for the quality on offer. At $12, it undercuts a lot of impulse-buy territory and lands squarely in the "just get it" zone, especially for players who've cleared their soulslike backlog and want something that won't feel like a retread.
The game launched in 2024 from Red Candle Games, a Taiwanese studio that had previously released horror games Detention and Devotion. The shift to action combat was a significant departure, and Nine Sols pulled it off in a way that earned the game a dedicated following. Its Steam user reviews sit at "Very Positive," with the community consistently praising the boss design and soundtrack.
Spoken of: the OST genuinely slaps. The music escalates alongside the difficulty in a way that makes the hardest fights feel earned rather than punishing.
What to expect when you jump in
If you're coming from Sekiro, the parry-first approach will feel natural within the first hour. If Hollow Knight is your reference point, the movement and exploration rhythm will be familiar even if the combat demands more precision. Nine Sols doesn't hold your hand through either system, but the difficulty curve is well-constructed enough that deaths feel instructive rather than arbitrary.
The Unbounded Counter is the mechanic worth mastering early. Most players default to standard blocks and miss how much the charged deflect changes the math on boss encounters. Learning when to commit to it and when to hold back is what separates a frustrating playthrough from a satisfying one.
For players who want to go deeper into the genre, our gaming guides cover a wide range of soulslike and action games to keep you sharp between sessions.
The 60% discount on Nine Sols is live now and runs through May 18 on Steam. At $12 for a 20-hour game with this level of craft behind it, the math is pretty straightforward.
