Lords of the Fallen is nearly here! Due to release on tomorrow, we’ve been lucky enough to have been playing it for the last week or more, and we have some thoughts. Originally devised as a sequel, before pivoting to a sequel-come-reboot of the 2014 version, Lords of the Fallen is the latest souls-like to hit the marketplace, after a busy year for the genre, with both Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and most recently, the Pinocchio inspired Lies of P bringing new ideas to the fore. What about Lords of the Fallen though?

Lords of the Fallen – Could THIS be the Next-gen Bloodborne?

For those unaware, Lords of the Fallen is set over a thousand years after the events of the 2014 Lords of the Fallen, where the demon God Adyr was vanquished. However, Gods don’t stay dead here, and a thousand years is enough time for Adyr to have rested, recuperated, and returned with a vengeance, and again, it is down to us, the player, to defeat him.

Unlike last time around, we won’t be taking the reigns of Harkyn, the protagonist from the previous game. This time, players are able to add a little creativity and choice to their chosen character, with both a character creator and classes being introduced.

The character creator is serviceable, with the choice of male and female, eye shapes, body shapes, colors, facial hair, and so on all being present. You’ll quickly realize that this may all be in vain, however, because to succeed in Lords of the Fallen, you need to wear armor, and lots of it. Your time spent creating the perfect character may not be wasted, but to appreciate it, you’ll have to walk around naked, which is suicide.

After ten minutes though, I had the closest approximation of myself thrown into the world of Axiom, and through the many classes on offer – an initial ten with the deluxe edition, more potentially available and secret – I chose the Blackfeather Ranger. Between having high agility points, a bow and arrow, and also having a Bloodborne-esque starting aesthetic, it seemed the obvious choice, but there are multiple options to choose from. If you’re more of a magic casting, keep your distance style of player, and choose the Pyric Cultist. Want a challenge? Choose the game’s ‘hardcore’ class of the Condemned, a class with light armor and a broken bucket used to defecate in – I’m not kidding. There’s a lot here to make your character your own.

Axiom and Umbral

The most unique part of Lords of the Fallen is the two worlds that players can explore. You have Axiom, the ‘standard’ world in which most of your time will be spent. The living spend their time here, and they have no need or want to go to the second world, the land of the dead, Umbral.

Umbral is a horrific world. Full of dead souls, desiccated and withered of all things good and green, it is not a pleasant place to be in, but it is a delight to see. Both worlds make fantastic use of Unreal Engine 5, pushing the engine to the max.

The impressive part of all this is not just the two worlds, both fully explorable, with their own puzzles, solutions, enemies, and advantages, but it is that by using the lamp, you are able to see through the veil from Axiom and see Umbral in real-time. During a discussion with the developers at Gamescom 2023, they revealed that this would have been impossible without the power of Unreal Engine 5, and that when the development happened upon the idea, it then snowballed and development picked up at an enormous pace – it was something of a catalyst.

Playing through, it’s impossible to imagine how the game would function without the dual worlds, with both being integral to the story throughout the thirty to forty hours, and it isn’t unfair to say that the constant flitting between the worlds – be it through choice to complete a puzzle, or through an unfortunate death – never got old.

As well as the two worlds being integral to the plot and puzzles, they also have a primary function of providing us with a second life as we play. If you die in Axiom don’t worry, you’ll revive in Umbral, given a second chance, but the difficulty is ramped up. The only way back to Axiom is to find a vestige, a small plinth similar to Bloodborne’s lamps. Without finding one of these, you’ll be stuck in Umbral, and with a timer ticking in the form of a giant eye, you won’t want to be there long enough to find out what happens if it spots you, trust me.

Combat and Death

As already said, death isn’t always permanent in Lords of the Fallen. Die in Axiom, revive in Umbral with a chance to return to the land of the living. Make sure you do, otherwise, death in Umbral will send you back to the last vestige you visited, losing your vigor (the in-game currency) and progress.

To avoid this, the developers have given plenty of tools to players to ensure we have the best chances. The standard weapons are on offer, from axes, swords, and daggers, to spells, and buckets (see above).

Anyone who has played a Souls-like knows that taking your time, watching and learning enemy attack routines, and timing your attacks is paramount to success, and for the most part, Lords of the Fallen follows the same idea. The majority of the enemies you’ll encounter are relatively simple to dispatch and kill, with the bosses and mini-bosses then proving to be a huge step up in difficulty. However, whether it is a boss or just cannon fodder, the tactics should be the same.

Dodging is always a sure way of avoiding damage, with the game being generous with its i-frames, but if you choose to parry, that’s also an option, but be warned… in Lords of the Fallen any and every parry will reduce your health slightly, called ‘wither’. Different potions and armor can reduce this, but never completely. I lost track of the number of times I died because I lost my health to a parry, and before I could deal out damage to get it back, I got attacked by a second or third enemy out of nowhere. Very quickly my tactics became dependant on timing dodges above all else.

Still, if you parry enough times, you’ll reduce your enemy’s stagger meter to zero, and then you’ll be able to land a ‘Grievous Strike’ on them, again, a Souls-like staple, but incredibly graphic and rewarding in Lords of the Fallen nonetheless.

The Lamp is Your Best Weapon

Surprisingly, the lamp given at the start of the game will become your greatest asset during your time in Axiom and Umbral. A necessary tool and a useful one, you’ll use it to complete puzzles, see through the veil to Umbral, and regularly, to deal unique damage to enemies. Early on you’ll be taught how to ‘Soulflay’, which in essence, is a move that drags the souls of your enemies from their bodies, allowing you to hack-n-slash away and deal damage to them you otherwise couldn’t.

Some enemies require you to do this to kill them, and others take more damage than if you just hit them normally. It is a unique mechanic, and one that further brings light to the lamp’s usefulness and place in the game – great pun, I realise.

As well as the soulflaying, the puzzles already mentioned require a little ingenuity. During your time in Axiom, you’ll sometimes come across a seemingly insurmountable or unenterable area. A quick glimpse with the lamp and you’ll see a solution in Umbral. You are able to the transport yourself into Umbral at will – although the inverse requires those vestiges, as mentioned -, complete the puzzle and progress, before quickly hightailing it back to Axiom.

Graphics and Performance

As mentioned, Lords of the Fallen uses Unreal Engine 5 – one of the first next-gen games to be released to do so – and it really does make great use of it. Unlike most developers, Hexworks had to design not one, but two worlds, and you’d think this would mean simple things would be missed, but thankfully, this really isn’t the case. Both Axiom and Umbral are beautiful in their own ways, with care taken to fully immerse you as you play. From the constant allusions to death in Umbral, for example, ladders look like spines, to the stigmas present in Axiom, a shadowy, oft traumatic glimpse into the past, there’s no stone left unturned by the developers.

Umbral gives a constant state of dread. Between the reminder to hurry, the fear of a permanent death and being surrounded by a desperate, nauseating world, you’ll want to take your time looking around, but hate yourself for taking the time to appreciate it. Axiom is the opposite of this, you’ll be spending your time appreciating the environments and character models, before promptly being overwhelmed by the cannon-fodder. It is a good problem to have. Plus, the bosses are immense to fight, and even more immense in variety.

Performance as a whole was very good during my time, with one solitary performance bug being identified and patched already. There was a time after the first boss where there was significant slowdown, but as mentioned, this was thankfully a patched bug that you won’t have to experience, but nonetheless, it was frustrating at the time. With both quality and performance modes though, you’ll be able to choose between higher fidelity or higher framerates, or swap at your own leisure.

The game does offer a co-op mode, which for whatever reason, I could not access. Seemingly a matter of just entering a vestige and inviting, it never happened, but I’m sure this will be fixed for the full release.

As a whole, Lords of the Fallen is VERY good. I loved it at Gamescom, and I loved my time with the review copy. Will I be returning to it? Yes. Is there parts that could be fixed or optimised? Sure, like any game. However, Lords of the Fallen is up there at the top of the Souls-like genre, and with the two worlds Axiom and Umbral, it offers a unique mechanic no other in the genre can. What the developers do in the future, be it with DLC for this or sequels, all I can say is I’m excited to see what they do with that two world mechanic, how they improve and adapt it, and what it means for us, the players, going forward.

8/10

Lords of the Fallen was played on PlayStation 5 and the code supplied by Honest PR.

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