Lords of the Fallen might be one of the most accessible Souls-likes yet

First off, a confession – Soulsborne games are not usually my go-to genre. But after attending a hands-on preview for Lords of the Fallen, that detail may have ironically worked in my favour. In fact, following my time with an early build, it feels like Hexworks has made one of those rare things – a Souls-like that even those not familiar to the genre can come away and have had a lot of fun with.

If you are familiar with the genre though, you’ll immediately feel right at home following character creation, as you’re thrust into the dark, foreboding world of Mournstead. The atmosphere is spot on as you explore your surroundings and making you feel like a stranger in an unfamiliar world that’s out to get you. All the core components – graphics, sound, art direction, come together to immerse you in the game’s world, with early enemies having a distinct horror vibe – a deliberate choice from the studio.

Speaking with developer Hexworks – check out our full interview over here – iconic horror artists were a key influence on the game’s, style, citing those such as Beksiński, H.R. Gieger and Olivier de Sagazan – the latter being known for putting clay on their face, then swirling it around and using paint to create the illusion of a face with melted skin and warped features, for example. If you’re a fan of tackling the sort of enemies right at home in a dark fantasy, you’ll be well served here.

But then there’s the game’s ace up its sleeve – and the mechanic that does the biggest job of making this a more accessible Souls-like – and it’s something that wasn’t present in the previous Lords of the Fallen game. See, the game takes place in two inter-connected realms. Axiom – the realm of the living, and Umbral, the realm of the dead. When you die, rather than making you restart immediately from the last Ancient Vestige (LotF’s equivalent to Dark Souls’ bonfires) – you’ll be sent to the world of Umbral.

Yes, there’s in fact almost a whole second world aspect to Mournstead, as this realm of the dead – while fitting in the same ‘space’ as the land of the living, isn’t just the same world with a grey filter, but rather a whole other dimension, with its own creatures, environments and puzzles. If you played recent Bloober Team horror The Medium, you get the idea. It’s a really neat trick, not only giving you a second chance at combat encounters, but also letting you see another side to the world, and forcing you to think almost in three dimensions about how you’ll get around the levels and even in combat.

Of course, you have a lantern that can help you ‘peer’ into Umbral when you’re not there, and you’ll be using this a lot to solve the game’s many non-combat problems it throws up. It’s handy then too that it also lets you deliberately transport yourself to the Umbral, should you find a path blocked in the normal world and you need to traverse the land of the dead to make progress. As you’d probably expect though, it’s not quite so easy to get back, as you’ll have to find a Vestige to ‘resurrect’ and return to the land of the living. You won’t want to stick around the Umbral too long either, as eventually sticking around will cause more and more spectral terrors to hunt you down and you’ll have to deal with.

As for combat – it feels as satisfyingly weighty and deliberate as you’d expect from the genre, and while you’ll absolutely still get wrecked if you try and go in and attack everything without thought, it rarely feels like a fight will be impossible to overcome – although the massive, screen-filling bosses will certainly give you a reason to pause before you wade in. Another neat trick is that some enemies will have an Umbral parasite attached, providing a shield or offering a buff to certain enemies, that must be syphoned off using your lantern before they can be damaged or to neuter them. Finally, soul flaying allows you – if you’re in Axiom – to literally suck the soul out of an enemy, which when attacked briefly makes them a little more vulnerable and gives you the opportunity to even make your enemy stagger before their soul returns to their body. All these are cool little additions to combat that force you to stay on your toes in every encounter and keeps even regular battles from feeling generic across the game.

Another great feature that makes the game a little more welcoming to newcomers is the addition of Forged Vestiges. They’re similar to the previously mentioned Ancient Vestiges, only they can be created on beds of Umbral flowers hiding in the world using an Vestige Seed. Essentially, they’re optional checkpoints – you don’t have to use them, but if you’re not as confident in your abilities, they provide an extra safety net and stop you having to backtrack even further.

However, you will of course have to earn these Seeds, from some vendors, mini-bosses or as rare loot drops – adding a whole new tactical layer. Do you use your seed now and let yourself breathe, or save them to make a checkpoint for a harder encounter later? In New Game Plus – where you’ll already know the map by that point – we’re told there’ll only be one Ancient Vestige, so you’ll have to put down your own Forged Vestiges yourself, which is a big jump in difficulty – but given you should know the game much better by that point, you’ll be better positioned to figure out the best placement for your checkpoints.

So yes, accessibility has been a big focus of Lords of the Fallen – but crucially, it doesn’t seem to be taking anything away from purists who want a challenging action RPG too. The genre has gone through a fair few changes in recent years – just look at the differences between Dark Souls and Elden Ring if you want an example – but from our two hour hands on, it feels like this Lords of the Fallen deserves to see a level of commercial success that the previous game never quite reached.

We’ll have to wait and see if it can do that when Lords of the Fallen arrives on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC on October 13, 2023.

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