Lords of the Fallen originally released in 2014, as a pretty good Soulslike game. After a couple of false starts and even a change in developer, HexWorks has taken the helm and has been tasked with righting the course of its sequel, which became a reboot of the franchise. Our Lords of the Fallen review will tell you if all that shuffling around did more harm than good or if HexWorks might be onto something with their parallel worlds idea.
Some Rough Frames
First, it should be noted that Lords of the Fallen uses Unreal Engine 5. One of our staff was playing on the PS5, and it ran alarmingly slowly, as in single-digit frame rates during certain cutscenes. Playing for a few hours straight would also cause a slowdown in frames. Thankfully, this issue appears (well, mostly) to have been rectified by HexWorks with a recent patch. On PC, of course, performance will vary based on your system’s specifications, but on an Intel CPU with a GTX 1080, we could pull around 40 fps at 1080p+ resolution, with DLSS enabled, on high. Lords of the Fallen does look nice, with detailed character models and a fairly large world, which is actually twice as big as what the player sees, thanks to the novel Umbral concept (more on that in a bit). Overall, while this isn’t necessarily a showcase title, it does have a nice look to it, especially if dark worlds are your thing.
Lords of the Fallen has tropes that are standard fare for the Soulslike genre. You pick from one of several different classes, set some basic physical features, and set off on a difficult journey. The tutorial expects you to die in your first real fight so that it can introduce the game’s respawn mechanics. After this point, the game mostly leaves you alone to discover things on your own. Most enemies can kill you in just a few hits at the start, and learning how to block and parry becomes a crucial survival tool as the game progresses.
Traditional Combat
Combat in Lords of the Fallen will be familiar to vets of this genre. You can equip a weapon or defensive item in either hand and various other pieces of equipment, alongside clothes, which vary in weight and defensive properties. You have a handful of attacks at your disposal: a light and a heavy attack, the latter of which can be charged to deal more damage at the risk of being more exposed as you charge it up. Fights are tough but fair, though there is a bit of an overcommitment issue with performing an attack, as you cannot dodge away mid-animation if you see an incoming attack. For a game that’s seen as more accessible, Soulslike, being unable to cancel moves easily makes things more difficult than some players may be used to.
Multiplayer is available basically from the start and has features that are standard for the genre. You can be invaded at any time by another player, whose task is to try and kill you. If they succeed, you’ll die as normal with a chance to regain your lost vigor, while the invader leaves your world and earns themselves a nice reward. Co-op is also an option for those who may need a bit of help going through levels and bosses. Multiplayer is on by default, and disabling it may reduce the frustration new players might have in the early stages of their game. The setting is retained across play sessions, too, and cross-platform play is an option.
A Whole New World
By far, the most unique thing that Lords of the Fallen has going for it is the Umbral concept. In this universe, the world of the living is called Axiom. But there is a parallel world called Umbral that exists for the dead. What this means is that the entire game is always loading two separate maps. The player has an Umbral lamp, allowing them to peer into the other world. This lamp can also be used to draw the souls out of enemies, and attacks on the soul, while it is vulnerable, can deal a great amount of damage to the enemy and potentially stun them. Naturally, this ability can only be used after a cooldown period at first, using energy that is obtained mostly by defeating enemies. It’s also one more thing to consider while fighting – if an enemy’s health bar has a white border, they cannot be harmed unless and until a certain spirit in Umbral is destroyed.
Umbral is presented as a much more terrifying place than Axiom, with a soundtrack that is much more foreboding and ominous compared to the regular world as well. When players die, they fall to the ground and dissolve away, and are immediately reborn in the world of Umbral. While they have not lost their vigor yet, if they die in Umbral, they will drop any collected vigor and die for real. So, Umbral exists as a way to give the player two (more if you manage to surface out of it) lives without simply giving them a life counter. But the world of Umbral is a harsher one than Axiom. Any enemies you were fighting get knocked back due to your emergence in Umbral, which conveniently gives you time to decide if you’re going to stay and fight or flee and attempt to find a way out of Umbral. This represents the biggest risk and reward system in Lords of the Fallen. Umbral comes with a vigor multiplier, which starts at 1.1x. As you spend more time in Umbral, this number ticks up by the tenths. However, more enemies will spawn nearby, and when the multiplier reaches 2.0x, more challenging enemies will join in the hunt, and at 3.0x, survival is usually measured in seconds. This is a great concept and worth the price of admission for fans of the genre.
Nearly Got It
There are a couple of things holding back Lords of the Fallen from reaching the upper echelon of Soulslike games. First and perhaps most pressing, there are occasionally some bugs that can cause the player to get stuck if they are not careful. The world features checkpoints called Vestiges where, in true Soulslike form, the player can upgrade their character if they’ve collected enough vigor, the name for Lords of the Fallen’s experience points, or they can also opt to rest, where they are completely healed and have their healing item recharged. However, all enemies will also return to life. Intentionally not using some is a strategy to get through an area more quickly or to keep the vigor multiplier higher. However, an easily repeatable bug would have parts of the map not load once you ventured too far from your last-used Vestige, and on more than one occasion, I fell not to my death but to a lower part of the map that was otherwise inaccessible. I couldn’t die, as I was stuck in a small stone area, and with no enemies around, there was no way to leave except to either quit the game or use the item which returns you to your last-used Vestiage, sans vigor. In a game where death can mean a huge loss of progress, something as simple as loading the map while walking should work flawlessly every time.
Also, while trips to Umbra are short by design, it’s a shame the multiplier counts up so quickly (jumps from 2.00 to 3.00 in seconds), necessitating an exit from an interesting world for most players. Furthermore, the sense of urgency in Umbra also means most people will miss out on some of the more grandiose designs of Umbra, such as ladders or bridges made of bones or giant skeletons in the distance. Looking back at some of the screenshots I took in Umbra, I realized there was a lot more to the sights of the world of the dead than I remembered because I whizzed by it all on my frenetic escape out of there. Though, I suppose this means Hexworks managed to create an undead world you don’t want to hang around in, precisely what it sounded like they wanted.
Verdict
Just like the original that preceded it, Lords of the Fallen is a solid Soulslike game, which relies on a familiar game loop of dying repeatedly, learning from your mistakes along the way, while finding a nice track of enemies to slaughter endlessly as you slowly grind your character’s level up to meet the challenge, or for those more inclined to not cheese things, then memorizing enemy attack patterns as you fight and claw your way to victory. The Umbral mechanic has brought something new to the table, but it’s a shame visits to the other side are limited. Hexworks set a high bar for themselves, and while they didn’t quite reach the heights they were going for, they should be commended for what they have accomplished.
Score: 7.5/10
Pros:
- Satisfying, genre-standard combat
- Umbral is an interesting place that acts as a second life
- Familiar, rewarding core game loop
Cons:
- Levels can occasionally take too long to load, resulting in collision issues.
- Performance can swing wildly.
- Uninterruptable attack animations
Lords of the Fallen review code provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
