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It’s fair to say that Lords of the Fallen is an unusual sequel. Not only is it coming ten years after the original, but it’s not bothering to call itself the second, and there’s no expectation for players to have even be familiar the first.
In fact, if our recent hands-on preview is anything to go on, those new to the genre will have just as good a time as action RPG veterans. We spoke with the game’s creative director Cezar Virtosu and head of studio Saul Gascon, both of developer Hexworks, about the new Lords of the Fallen and how the game will reflect the changes in the genre since the original title’s release.
VG: The landscape of the action RPG genre has changed a lot in the last decade, how does the new Lords of the Fallen reflect that?
Saul Gascon: So I think that there… there are several factors, several key factors for us. The first one is that the industry has evolved a lot on from a technical perspective, right? What you can achieve today visually speaking is of a much higher level of fidelity than it used to be back then, that’s an obvious one. But that has a direct impact on the visuals that we can provide and that we want to provide. Then another that is also key is that the tactical action RPG genre has been expanded massively, especially thanks to Elden Ring and other products like Nioh and other games that are actually expanding the genre and get more audiences to come in.
How this impacts us is that we need to keep offering this challenging experience, but we also need to keep in mind that we need to make it more accessible. So, for people that are not that well-versed in the genre, they can have a smoother time, right? This is not about making it easier at all – you saw it today! (Laughs) We still have our skill checks and our difficulty spikes but we do the increase smoothly rather than *poof* a wall, right? So it’s a smooth incline instead of just a wall. So the start of the game is a ‘Welcome to Lords of the Fallen’ right? So that wall comes a little later.
Cezar Virtosu: I think there’s also a bigger focus on immersion and depicting realistic, believable environments. And this was marshaled by many other big, big, big, big games and became like, sort of a norm for this third person action, immersive adventure genre. And I’m not talking about the polygons and pixels – although that’s very important. But even then (some of the) games are a bit more silly, they’re a bit less dramatic and now the genre has sort of crystallized and they still have very many, many, many serious bits. And there are many games that do not take things too seriously and even our game has its more, like, light hearted moments. But the dark fantasy that we are trying tap into, that was one of the first mandates to make it a dark fantasy.
No, it’s not because we wanted a grimdark sort of edgy feel… though the edge is there and the edge is cool. But it’s no different than the difference between World of Warcraft and Game of Thrones. They can be both highly emotional. Game of Thrones has this grime, this mud on the boots, these clothes stained with blood and… when terrible things happen to relatable people, It is much more impactful. So this was our mandate – to ground the game not so much that it becomes boring or tedious – we don’t to be like the monsters in the sixth season… But we wanted to create a more compelling world to the environmental storytelling.
VG: The dual universe mechanic with Umbral – that’s obviously a huge departure from the first game. Is that theme of duality a common one through the game?
CV: Yes, indeed. So this came – as with all things – we don’t wake up in the middle of the night and say, “Oh! Umbral”
SG: “Eureka!”
CV: Yeah, no. We addressed feedback, we scoured the internet for it. And we have to agree. And then we had to agree on what our pillars were because feedback can be contradictory and you can’t address everything – you need to address some things that do not attack our pillars.
One of our pillars was accessibility and allowing players to learn from their mistakes. Because the difference between motivation and frustration is understanding – what did you mean? What’s wrong and what did the game want you to do? So, Me and Saul wanted for the player to play their mistakes. When you die, it’s not *poof* start over. Yes, you died because you get shot by the boss, but you’re not… we wanted you to pick up yourself and try to extricate, lick your wounds in the dark but not lose your experience. And so if you want to press forward, it’s really up to you to do so.
And then we want to address the feedback that the first game was a bit too linear. We wanted to create the world where the armour? sort of interconnects, but how does it do that? So, all these things kind of coagulated in this concept and this is where I said to Saul “Saul, are we making two games? I don’t think I like this!”
SG: Yeah this was one of the challenges, actually being able to create two worlds in parallel and making them fully and different enough to feel like they’re worth it, right? So say you use the same world but with a blue filter – that’s okay, but that’s not enough. So we had to create. We started from the environments and then you start with monsters and specific creatures. We have an Umbral Chaser which is a creature like the Light Reaper like you found in the tutorial…
CV: (Laughs) Don’t spoil it!
SG: But it’s the Umbral counterpart, right? Yeah. So, it’s gonna be chasing you. He either appears there, you know, when you get there right? Yeah, you’re basically about to die. (Laughs)
CV: The Umbral has its rules and mechanics and we we made them pretty visible but also somewhat opaque. I mean, you can see that in the explaining the vigour multiplier – the experience from first game increases one time in Umbral but some other stuff… We want like a place of horror but one in which players that want to sort of be there if they feel inclined can be.
SG: And the first game gave us a very good foundation of our universe, and we went deep in any main aspect in of course Harkins, the main character and Adyr – the main villain of the first game. So that was a great canvas for us to expand upon. So there are things that were just in the first game as a name in the lore like the Judges. You actually get to meet those in this game, right? And then you can interact with some of them.
You can also meet other important characters that are mentioned and we’ve expanded what was called Radiant magic in the first game and more about the Orius religion, right? So we expanded all those things that were just a small comment in a corner (of the first game) and now *makes build up sound*. So you have the Sentinels and (the Orius worshippers) as the two rivals and then Umbral came as our need to have his innovation for the genre.
So, we have a lot of micro innovations or micro improvements in the moment-to-moment, but we needed this big thing that was very dramatic to play with. And then to make it valid it needed to have its own mythos, its own Gods, it’s on or perceived Gods, right? So the cosmic horror is the third faction in this dispute, right? And in fact, depending on how you play the game you can support any of the three factions, and of course, that will lead to a different ending with different results.
VG: You mentioned about the Umbral dimension taking a lot of inspiration from horror. Was horror a big influence on the game?
SG: Yes because the base world we have, right? The real world – it’s a dark fantasy universe. It’s… sorry for my french but it’s already f***ed up. Yeah, right. So then – how do the nightmares of the people, the inhabitants of that world look like? And that’s what Umbra comes in. So, yes, it’s obviously when you go from dark to darker – that’s when the Horror references come to mind. We used many references like Beksiński, a Polish artist, H.R. Gieger and Olivier de Sagazan was kind of the main…
CV: He’s a French performance artist that puts clay on his face and keeps working it with paint and his fingers and creates pretty much what you see.
SG: Which fits perfectly with the concept of Umbral.
CV: Yeah and these are the finds of our fantastic art director. But the thing is, there’s many types of horror. In Umbra, we do not use body horror, which is you see in the Lovecraft stuff time and time again, because this is the stuff, the flesh, the snap of broken bones. We use it for Axiom because this is the manifestation of corruption in the real world.
Whereas Umbral is like this dark mirror that shows you the reality. And for us Umbral was a place of Corruption made manifest of truth, firstly. A snapshot of the past, but more than this the creatures there are allegorical to feelings. We have the Husks. The Mendacious Visions, the Womb of Despair – that flying creature that lays all the eggs. So all of them are unfulfilled negative emotions of what we humans have and perceive. So it was a trip.
SG: And it’s important to remark as I’m explaining this, that all these creatures that we mention, all these horrors – they are very organic right? So it’s not the classic spectre going “ooOooooO” – that. Yeah, with ghosts around, right? It’s… everything is organic, everything is real. So it’s this parallel dimension but there is something organic on the other side, it’s not just ghosts.
CV: But you have to have to look at them – if you see the Womb of Despair and you see her torso being open and a big belly with different hands and hand imprints on the belly. It all tells the story of how these creatures came to be with unfulfilled motherhood and about expectations – but you have to look. Yeah, this is the one I meant if the player feel so inclined to peel the layers. It’s fine – if you don’t Fine. If not it’s just hack and slash – go man! Do your thing!
SG: Yeah then it’s cool monsters that you fight..
CV: Yeah that’s fine if you don’t want to look too much into it.
VG: Do you think as a European studio, you have a more unique position to offer that dark fantasy genre?
SG: Well actually, it’s curious because right the dark fantasy, the medieval dark fantasy is purely born from from the west. Like gothic… you have excellent pieces of art here Like HR Gieger. A lot of things like you have a lot of these… like Game of Thrones, obviously. But it’s magical about what these Japanese studios did right? It’s cultural, it’s very based on imagery and on visuals. So they had their interpretations of our Western legends and stories and kings and monsters that are very allegorical, very abstract, very crazy, If you think about it.
It’s like… it’s how the Gods affect physically their beings, right? So that’s something that actually we loved. We love it and we integrated in our game, so it’s kind of like coming back home – it’s been from Europe, to Japan and now it’s coming back home for our reinterpretation of the reinterpretation.
CV: For us, it was familiar ground. All of these things were steeped in our history and customs.
SG: And the folklore and legends.
CV: All our creatures are, they’re pulled in from a place of realness and the folklore, all of them and you’ll see.
VG: So was accessibility a major pillar of the game’s design?
SG: Yes.
CV: Yeah, without question.
SG: Because these games are opaque, and obtuse and that’s infamous but also it’s a part of the brand, and we were fiddling around – “It’s a core mechanic so we’re not feeling comfortable…” But we were like “Oh man we’re doing too much with the second chance, with the Umbral, with all the mechanics, we’re doing too much to help the player and Elden Ring came in and we were like “Oh, we’re fine. We’re okay. I think we’re more hardcore!”
CV: Yeah. Actually this thing is a perfect example because we had a version in which, when you started, you could build Vestiges anywhere you wanted. And without that we saw that this was amazing, right, for some very, very veteran Souls-like players, like really hardcore ones. But then everybody else was alienated that – “I don’t know what I need to do to build my Vestige?” “This is confusing and I’m dying all the time and I go back to the beginning of the game, right?“
So we had its so that there was only one ancient vestige right in the hub at the bridge, but that just went too far too. So now we had the flower beds to kind of tell you, hey, it’s a good place, you know? We saw again that the veterans were like “Yeah, this is great” But then non-veterans were like. “This is too much.” So we ended up adding the ancient vestiges everywhere in the world, right? And then that got us a second option and that was balanced.
But If you go to NG plus, And you have the original vision in that regard. And it’s not because of spite – well, just a bit. (Laughs) But in NG+ basically you will only have one Ancient Vestige and everything else you need to build yourself. But as you already know the layouts of the levels more or less, you will be able to judge what is a good moment to place (the Vestige) or not.
If you’ve yet to check out our Lords of the Fallen preview yet, you can do so here. Lords of the Fallen arrives on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC on October 13, 2023.
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