How To Make A Souls Like Combat System In Unreal Engine – Unreal University by Udemy

If you ever wanted to make combat that actually feels like Dark Souls, this is it. You get lock-on, stamina that punishes button-mashing, combo attacks, dodges, blocks, enemy AI, and a proper troll boss with ranged and melee moves — all built in Unreal Engine 5.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Build a dynamic lock-on targeting system with camera control
• Set up a souls-like combo system for melee attacks
• Create health and stamina systems tied to sprinting, blocking, attacking, and dodging
• Build skeleton enemy AI using Behavior Trees
• Create a troll boss with melee attacks and long-range projectile attacks
• Add polish with health bars, UI, and game feel tweaks

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with Unreal Engine 5 interface and Blueprints
• Tools: 3-button mouse and keyboard
• Hardware: PC capable of running Unreal Engine 5, dedicated GPU and minimum 16GB RAM recommended

📝 Description

This isn’t theory. You build a playable melee system from zero, piece by piece. We start with the lock-on targeting — because without that camera feel, nothing feels souls-like. Then we layer in attacks, combos, and hit reactions until trading blows actually feels right.

Stamina is the core of this genre, so we wire it into everything. Sprint, attack, block, dodge — it all drains your stamina bar. Run out at the wrong time and you’re punished. That’s what makes the combat tense, and you’ll set that logic up yourself with Unreal Engine 5 tools.

Then we get to enemies. First a skeleton grunt that chases, attacks, and takes damage. You’ll use Behavior Trees to drive its decisions, which is the same setup pros use for most melee AI. Once that clicks, we scale it up to a troll boss that mixes close-range slams with projectile attacks when you try to run away.

By the end you won’t just have copy-pasted nodes. You’ll know why the system is structured that way, and how to reuse it for your own game. Health, UI, dodging, blocking — it’s all connected, and you’ll have the full roadmap.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• UE5 beginners who want to build their first real combat system instead of just watching tutorials
• Indie devs and hobbyists making an action RPG or souls-like prototype

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

This course is published by Unreal University on Udemy, a creator team focused on practical Unreal Engine game projects. Their teaching style is straight to the point: build systems you can actually ship, using real engine tools like Blueprints and AI logic. This souls-like course packages their melee combat workflow into one A-to-Z roadmap.

🏁 Final Result

• A playable souls-like combat demo with lock-on, combo attacks, stamina-based actions, skeleton enemy AI, and a troll boss with melee and projectile phases — ready to record for your portfolio.