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The upcoming Soulslike dark fantasy action-RPG Lords of the Fallen is nearing its October 2023 release date. In anticipation of that, I travelled to London for an exclusive preview event. Under the thundering noises of the London overground, I sat down for around four hours of playtime, trying (and often failing) to fight my way across highly atmospheric landscapes and past unforgiving enemies.
Lords of the Fallen takes place 1000 years after the events of the previous game bearing the same name. The banished demon god Adyr is seeking to return, and only a dark crusader armed with a magic lantern that opens a portal to the underworld, stands in his way. Compared to the 2014 game, developer Hexworks says Lords of the Fallen has faster combat, a world that is five times bigger, and grander RPG elements. There are more ways to pick individual fighting styles and more gear customisation options, for example. However, the biggest novelty is that this game plays out in two parallel worlds: Axiom, the world of the living, and Umbral, the nightmarish world of the dead.
Starting off my preview session, I first picked one of the available classes. The different classes emphasise the classic RPG options of either melee, ranged or magic attacks. One of the developers recommended the agile but powerful melee-focused Warwolf class, but considering my inexperience with Soulslike games, I decided to pick the Knight class because it had the most health. After a short introduction movie, I dropped into Axiom. The early stages inside some caverns allow you to become familiar with the game, showing you the basics of how to attack, parry and roll away. Quite early on though, I found it quite challenging to do some of the more complex actions, such as soul flaying with the blue lantern. This allows you to pull the soul out of an enemy, so you can attack it for extra damage.
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After completing the starting environment, I began exploring more of Axiom. During my preview, I was able to see several different locations. I fought zombie pilgrims in a deserted medieval fantasy village, I battled religious fanatics and armoured warriors on cliffside wooden scaffolding, and was often killed by head-crushing undead giants while in a network of mines deep inside a mountain. I was left very impressed by the atmosphere that Hexworks manages to create in these environments. The places I moved through were simply stunning and highly fitting for the genre, and easily one of the best things about Lords of the Fallen. At one point, I simply paused to marvel at the combination of wall decorations, rows of candles and detailed architecture inside a big cathedral-like sanctuary. Moreover, the dark fantasy atmosphere gets even better once you enter Umbral, the underworld.
The magic blue lantern allows you to peek into and walk around the Umbral underworld at all times. Umbral is spatially mostly identical to Axiom, but it's much darker and everywhere you look there's death around you. The ground and walls are often covered in heaps of twisted corpses that are banded together. At other times, huge corpse-like creatures are visible in the distance, sometimes forming flesh bridges to other areas. Zombies also appear constantly when you're in Umbral, and while they're not very strong, they join the enemies you were already fighting. Because I had a hard time fighting the enemies, I spent a lot of time in Umbral, from which you can only return to Axiom at camp locations and at single-use portals taking you back.
Umbral also adds interesting gameplay elements. For example, Umbral allows you to reach areas that are off-limits in Axiom. I was forced to travel to Umbral at some point, in order to get around an impassable area filled with water. On another occasion, I held up my lantern and discovered a hidden Umbral stairway taking me around a cliff's edge, where I found a nice steel shield. Lords of the Fallen also has some platforming in its gameplay, which often requires you to use your lantern to magically pull on an especially tormented-looking undead corpse hanging from a ledge. Lastly, the addition of the Umbral underworld also allows a second chance for players to fight through the game. Considering the game's difficulty, I feel this is indeed a good addition for less experienced (or skilled) players like myself.
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Regarding the game's storyline, there was just enough in there to give me an idea of the background story. There are some bits of dialogue spread throughout the game, but they're easily skipped and not particularly inspiring. It seems like they will do the job of telling the story, though, especially when there's so much impressive scenery to enjoy. At some locations there are also imprints from the past, that visualise what happened when Axiom was overrun by evil forces. However, the figures that appear are made out of crude, jagged white lines. They are not nearly as good-looking as the rest of the game, and to me looked like unfinished concept drawings in a 3D editor. It felt like an element in the game that has received a lot less attention.
So, story-wise, my preview impressions are a bit mixed. However, challenging combat is what Lords of the Fallen is (also) really about. And from what I can tell from my preview, Lords of the Fallen is a very tough game to play with lots of layers in its combat system. The early part of the game taught me to lock into combat with a chosen unit first, and then combine attacks, parries and evasive moves to defeat enemies. It's also possible to change your combat stance, in the case of the knight by switching between fighting with sword and shield or wielding the sword with two hands for more powerful, slower blows. Other melee weapons I tried were a big hammer and a long slashing spear. Due to my class, I wasn't able to try out ranged attacks much and did not see any of the three magic types that are also in the game. However, I did see bows, crossbows and different armour types on sale at one of the vendors.
While initially I could manage the enemies coming at me, around an hour into my four-hour session I was already starting to struggle badly. In the medieval village, I was up against a combination of enemies. Crooked and hooded zombie pilgrims wielding wooden crosses as weapons came at me with melee attacks, while ranged units with magic attacks also made their appearance. With multiple enemies coming at me, I often forgot about locking into combat and just kept hacking and slashing around me and rolling away. By (unwillingly) not sticking to the game's combat mechanics well, I had a very hard time progressing and I died frequently. I did try blocking and parrying, but still I often got hit. I also didn't really understand the usefulness of vigour and the soul flaying mechanic. With time being scarce, I ended up running past a lot of enemies in order to get to the first boss fight.
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The first boss was shown in one of the trailers and is called Pieta. She's basically a sort of big, sword-wielding Valkyrie that combines close-up and ranged attacks that you need to block or evade. I was only able to defeat her because the developers gave me 10 times the normal attack values, though I didn't receive a boost to my health. Still, all four boss fights I played were really tense and had me on the edge of my seat. Not only do you need to combine defence and offense, but the bosses can also pick you up and deal massive damage when doing so. I also had to peek into Umbral (when not already there) to see if the bosses weren't boosted by so-called parasites from the underworld. In that case, you need to take those out first.
The bosses I fought during my preview were all a bit different and very challenging. After Pieta there was another female boss shooting magic in a confined space, and a female boss that could summon big hounds. The final boss I fought was the most terrifying, called the 'Congregation of Flesh': a huge monster made out of flesh and multiple rows of teeth with long arms constantly striking at you. At some point I ended up somewhere inside it's body after being swallowed, but managed to cut myself out and continue the fight. Due to my boosted weapon I managed to defeat him as well, but I cannot imagine doing so otherwise. I later learned from one of the developers that this already challenging boss was still one of the earlier ones in the game.
Despite my struggles, I think I had a good enough impression of the game's combat system to know that there's a lot of depth to it. Hexwork's Creative Director, Cezar Virtosu, told me that pulling the soul out of enemies allows you to harvest runes, for example, that can be used to boost your weapons. Similarly, there's a blacksmith somewhere that will boost your weapon damage. My only comment on the combat is that either my character or enemies regularly rolled or moved away into weird locations. A magic-shooting enemy got stuck floating on the edge of a platform on both occasions that I fought him, for example. Also, I heard from others at the event who picked more ranged-focused classes that they really struggled to do damage to the bosses.
In all, what seems to stand out in Lords of the Fallen is a combination of great, highly atmospheric locations, an interesting gameplay twist with the parallel Umbral world, and very difficult combat against a variety of enemies and bosses. However, I did notice some strange movement bugs here and there, and I dislike the way some parts of the story are being told. My expectation is that Lords of the Fallen will definitely become a great addition to the line-up of Soulslike games, more so if you're into co-op, as it features seamless co-op multiplayer.
Lords of the Fallen launches on October 13th on PS5, PC and Xbox Series X.
