It’s impossible not to define Lords of the Fallen in FromSoftware’s terms. With its capital-D Dark Fantasy world and its dodge rolls and healing flasks and monster factory characters, Hexworks – a collective of two studios in Barcelona and Bucharest that’s still a part of the same CI Games that co-developed the first Lords of the Fallen, back in 2014 – has defined itself into a certain class, a specifically challenging weight category and, in the process, squared up to one of video games’ all-time super heavyweight champions of the world. I’m not sure they’ve picked a fair fight.
I’ve played a couple of hours of new Lords of the Fallen and crucially, I can tell you it’s: good. If you’ve played a Soulslike before – or as Hexworks wisely describes the genre, which extends to Nioh, The Surge and the rest, tactical action-RPGs – it’ll be immediately familiar. You can create a character from one of several preset classes, ranging from glass cannon mages to sword-and-shield warriors, with some more lore-y archetypes in between with a little clan-based backstory behind them: a raven-like archer, a brawler with a twist of wolves.
You’ll put points into stats as you level up – which you do at Vestiges, Lords of the Fallen’s take on bonfires, that also act as fast travel points and places to rest and heal up. You’ll do a little dodge or a big dodge, conserve your stamina, create a fraction of free time to swig your healing brew, maybe fire off a perfect parry. There will be mini-bosses, multi-stage, transformative boss fights, and sneaky little scumbags poking you in the back from their hiding place behind doors. The problem is “good” might not be good enough.
