PLATFORM: PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
2014’s Lords of the Fallen was generally regarded as a slightly wonky attempt at paying tribute to FromSoftware’s Dark Souls, a series which – at the time of LotF‘s release – was winning plaudits for its second instalment and rapidly gaining a dedicated following. Seeking to build upon LotF‘s foundations, developers Hexworks have returned with a follow-up which, in slightly confusing fashion, is also named Lords of The Fallen. Taking place 1000 years after the events of the first game, players take the role of a Dark Crusader whose mission is to cleanse five corrupted beacons across the land of Mournstead in order to prevent the resurrection of a demonic God. The game’s plot doesn’t go much deeper than that, but then it doesn’t really need to – it gives us a reason for our journey, then lets us get on with doing whatever we need to do to achieve our goal.
Taking most of its cues from Dark Souls, LotF challenges players to make their way through the land of both the living and the dead, slaying enemies at every turn and encountering all manner of fearsome bosses. The usual Soulslike elements are all present and correct, from resting at checkpoints to heal and level up, and hard-hitting foes that require patience and skill to take down, to exploring the world for weapons and armour, and trying to reclaim your lost “souls” after each death. Fans of the Soulslike genre will feel right at home, although LotF does have a trick up its sleeve to help it stand out from similar titles.
Your character carries a lantern which allows you to cross between the worlds of the living (Axiom) and the dead (Umbral). Dying while in Axiom sends you to the Umbral realm, from which you can escape back to the living by reaching a checkpoint. While you’re dead, enemies from the living realm are joined by additional Umbral enemies, and more and more undead nightmares begin to chase you down the longer you spend in their realm, ramping up the tension as you desperately scrabble around trying to find a way to return to the land of the living. The lantern also allows you to jump into the Umbral realm at will, if you’re feeling particularly confident, and can also be used to peer from Axiom into the undead realm to solve puzzles and find hidden areas. Adding an extra wrinkle to a familiar format doesn’t always work out too well, but thankfully in this case the lantern is a neat mechanic that offers something new to the genre without unnecessarily overcomplicating things.
At first glance, Lords of the Fallen might appear to be a carbon copy of Dark Souls / Bloodborne, but it has enough nuances and gimmicks to distinguish itself from similar pretenders. It does a lot of things very well indeed, although occasionally falls into less welcome territory with some performance issues (the game deciding to stutter during a jump, causing you to plummet to your death, is never fun…) and purposely infuriatingly-placed enemies that feel like they were only put there to troll the player rather than provide a challenge. A solid seven, then, dropping it right at the top end of a three-star rating. Keep an eye out for news of performance patches, as if those are addressed at a later date then we’d certainly whack an extra star on.
