Lords of the Fallen originally released in 2014, when it received fairly average reviews. However, it seemingly sold enough copies to warrant a sequel, which never fully materialized. Nine years later, a reboot is nearly upon us with a new game, on the latest consoles and PC, with the same name.

MP1st was invited to get a couple of hours of hands-on time with the upcoming creation by developer Hexworks, and we have our impressions ready right now.

A Bit More Accessible

Lords of the Fallen is a Soulslike game, so naturally, it’s challenging. Although, if you have a decent amount of experience with these types of games, you likely won’t have too much of an issue with the regular enemies on offer here and will only find real challenges in the game’s many bosses. Indeed, during my time with Lords of the Fallen, my only deaths occurred during the first true boss, Pieta. A large part of this decrease in difficulty compared to, say, Elden Ring is due to the two lives you’re given.

One unique aspect of Lords of the Fallen is the existence of a parallel world called Umbral. It’s a world of the dead, and represents many things for players. For starters, dying in the main overworld (called Axiom) doesn’t immediately cause you to lose progress. Instead, you are sent to Umbral with one chance to return to the world of the living. This can be accomplished by reaching certain exit points, or building a Forged Vestige by using the relatively rare resource Vestige Seed at particular spots in Umbral.

Essentially, all of Lords of the Fallen features two separate yet interlinked levels to traverse. At any point, you can peer into the Umbral world by holding up your Umbral Lantern. Sometimes, it will be necessary to perform an Umbral Rift, which transports you to the world of the dead at the cost of one of your lives. This will enable you to, for example, cross a bridge that exists only in the Umbral world, thus allowing you to cross an otherwise uncrossable, destroyed bridge in the normal Axiom world. This does represent a unique gameplay mechanic that will no doubt be used throughout the entire game.

The Best Defense Can Be Offense

The Umbral Lantern isn’t only used to travel between worlds. It can also be used offensively. Performing a move called a Soul Flay allows you to rip out the soul of an enemy and attack it. Perform enough damage to the soul in a short window of time, and the enemy will be stunned and ripe for a Soul Reaping attack, which is a special finisher that deals a lot of damage. The lantern can only hold one charge of this ability at first, but of course, this can be increased with upgrades later on in the adventure. Some Axiom (regular) enemies will also have buffs from parasites that only exist in the Umbral realm – the Lantern can thus be used to drain and eventually kill the parasite, which will help make the main enemy a little easier to defeat.

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One area where the Umbral mechanic comes in handy is in boss battles. Even against the game’s first boss, which is, Souls-style, designed to kill you so you can learn about the game’s respawning mechanics, performing an Umbral Rift can help you to avoid some attacks at the cost of one of your lives. It’s a risky move, to be sure, but it can occasionally help improve your chances of survival.

Standard Genre Tropes

Combat in Lords of the Fallen is pretty standard for the genre. You’ve got heavy and light attacks at your disposal, blocking and parrying, and even jumping if you’re sprinting. There are also magic attacks that are strong and weak against each other and even ranged weapon options. Dodging via dashing is a common tactic used to lure enemies to attack in order to counter them after they miss you. Double-tapping the dodge button will quickly get you out of harm’s way, though, of course, this uses a good chunk of stamina which is very limited at the start.

If a lot of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is for these types of games. There’s a tutorial sequence where you’re expected to die against a very overpowered boss and thus introduced to the respawn mechanic. There are bonfires like in Souls games, but here they are called Vestiges. These areas are relatively safe and allow you to fill up your healing items at the cost of resetting enemies, upgrading, and performing other tasks. There are multiple character classes to choose from, varying from tanks to magic users, and of course, a special cursed class for those who love extra challenges. This is all stuff you’ll find in any Soulslike, perhaps because these things work so well for games of this type.

Definitely a Reboot

Lords of the Fallen may share the same name as the original 2014 game, but it expands upon basically every aspect of the original. There are two separate worlds, for starters, but also a faster combat system, more RPG aspects, and the entire campaign can be played in online co-op. While we didn’t get to try out this feature during our hands-on time, we were told that the feature is seamless and should help increase accessibility for those that might need assistance playing tougher games.

Lords of the Fallen, as it’s shaping up now, seems to be on the right path to be a fun Soulslike, with its own unique features that it brings to the table. The helper NPCs before boss fights will help the game be a bit more accessible to those who need the assistance, while its optional status means those who are a glutton for punishment can ignore them entirely. There is a sense that we’ve seen a lot of this before, even down to the “cursed” character that you can start with, but some of that is inevitable in a genre with well-established tropes. Prepare yourself for Lords of the Fallen’s launch in October 2023 for current-generation consoles and Windows.

Lords of the Fallen will be released this October 13 on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.