Almost a month on from its release, Lords of the Fallen is a visually stunning Soulslike that’s still held back by ongoing technical issues on console – and that’s a shame. After all, this 2023 series reboot is a rare breed of next-gen project designed just for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, S and PC. Added to that, the game is built on Unreal Engine 5 with a heavy use of its Nanite and Lumen technologies. Developer Hexworks goes all-out here in its world-building and the UE5 features allow for intricately detailed gothic environments, lit by a hybrid ray-traced global illumination technique. Add in a realm-switching mechanic – in the tradition of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver – and it makes sense that the game’s ambition is perhaps beyond the scope of a last-gen console release.
In fact based on the evidence today, it’s a big ask even on today’s machines. Despite its technical achievements, Lords of the Fallen’s launch has not been a smooth one – and even after almost a month’s worth of patches on the console front, the game remains flawed as of version 1.1.293 (and even in our re-test of v1.1.310 as of publishing this article today) with clear frame-rate drops and issues in image quality.
With this in mind, it’s time to finally tackle the PS5, Series X and Series S versions in turn, each fully patched up. A heads up that there are two modes included on every console, as is the trend these days: a 60fps performance mode and 30fps quality mode – and we’ll be comparing both. In particular though, there’s much to be said for the game’s delivery of 60fps gameplay – with Series S especially coming out worse for wear.
