Lords of the Fallen (2023)

The 2023 reboot of Lords of the Fallen dropped its definite article eventually and instead one has to use the release year to distinguish the titles -- which might actually be clearer. The developer studio CI Games had founded to make the game also ended up being called Hexworks instead of the initially announced 'Defiant Games' for whatever reason.

Lords of Mixed Reception

History repeated itself and this 2023 title too got a mixed reception. I guess people found once again a game copying FromSoftware's soulslike titles but not doing good enough of a job at it. Unlike with the original, this time I agree with the general consensus.

I think this Unreal Engine 5 game had some technical issues at release as well but they seemed to have been ironed out. The game really wants to be installed on an SSD and even when on one, I saw it once complaining about the drive not being fast enough. The game seemed to run fine on an HDD too, though: loading times are just much longer, particularly the initial boot up.

I briefly visited the 2014 game before starting this one even though I knew there was no much of a point story or even gameplay-wise to expect a continuation. And by briefly I mean I beat it once: the original is quite short and easy (especially if you've already beaten it five times). I did a Faith build which is basically Strength but weaker: it takes more hits to kill stuff. You can use the gauntlet's power more and immune-to-physical ghosts will be a non-issue, though. Otherwise, I found it a very similar run compared to my previous ones.

With something familiar

Coming straight from the original, I have to say that the difference in gameplay feel was quite stark. You're so much quicker in this reboot! But comparing the gameplay in the sense of there being continuation is largely pointless: this really is a different game. Story-wise Lords 2023 didn't start with a completely clean table, though. The basic lore background is familiar -- it's the god Adyr again -- and you even get to meet Harkyn who was the previous protagonist. It's uncertain to what degree the original's events are canon; it all seemed quite vague.

At certain points, this reboot uses the original's main theme. It makes a lot of sense as a throwback if you end up in a fight against Harkyn but I don't know if there was some significance of it being used in the Harrower Dervla boss fight too. The melody's melancholy is chilling. The boss fight is cool too --  about all of them are. I think the boss introduction and possible phase change cinematics should have an option to be autoskipped on repeats. It gets annoying having to do that manually on repeated attempts. This bothered me in Lies of P too.

And something new

The unique feature of Lords 2023 is its world of the living, Axiom, having an overlapping realm of the dead, Umbral. You have a lamp that allows you to glimpse into the shadowy Umbral and even enter it at any time. Coming back is slightly more complicated as you need to get to a Vestige to do so.

Umbral features its own enemies while still having all of Axiom's enemies present at the same time. It also has secrets and pathways that don't exist in Axiom. You accrue more vigor (the game's currency) while in Umbral. Unlike in the original, the multiplier doesn't go up with kills but at certain thresholds of time spent in the shadow realm. When it hits 3x, a scary Scarlet Shadow (aka Red Reaper) starts chasing you.

Due to the timer putting on pressure, the intensifying music, and the continuously spawning enemies, I didn't enjoy Umbral. The game doesn't even have pausing so going AFK in there is not recommended. Umbral heavily lengthens the game for someone like me who wants to check every corner. There's like twice the amount of map to explore.

I did like how Umbral is sort of an extra life: dying in Axiom isn't lethal because you get transferred into Umbral first -- which reminded me of being knocked out of your shell in Mortal Shell. Also cool is how an Umbral enemy can by hitting you pull you from Axiom when you're using the lantern to peek in.

I wonder how the tech works behind the scenes: if Axiom's enemies weren't present in Umbral, I would have guessed there simply being two distinct maps like in Dishonored 2's Crack in the Slab mission or Prey's Looking Glass recordings.

A marathon of challenge

Lords 2023 gave me an ever-present challenge through the majority of its nearly 70h runtime (for me). Only maybe around 3/4s I realized normal enemies no longer posed that much of a threat and even bosses were dying on first attempts. Before that things weren't as easy; bosses always took at least few tries. Nothing was extremely hard either, though: the final boss (of the Umbral ending) probably was what took me the most time of any single obstacle.

I wanted to play a paladin type of character: heavy armor, a two-handed sword, and some utility holy spells. Spending time adjusting your character's appearance in the creator is a huge waste if you use heavy armor and helmets that will hide everything.

Swordplay didn't turn out to be as good as I had hoped; it wasn't the sprint into a jump attack for an instant kill or at least a staggered enemy experience like in the original. Instead you get slow-ass swings with barely any staggering happening on the enemy.

And so I opted for a faster one-handed sword, an early game boss weapon Pieta's Sword. I believe it may have been better at release; it wasn't as overpowered as many comments led me to think. Even the lowliest of enemies often took a considerable amount of swings to kill with it.

The sword also does pure holy damage, which made me wary: what will I do if I meet a holy-resistant or even immune enemy? And so I kept upgrading a big physical sword as well, even starting to prefer it. But for bosses the lightsaber was more comfortable due to being able to get hits in quicker. In the endgame I switched permanently to a grand sword -- the Bloody Glory, maybe? I think it was its secondary bleeding effect that made it so effective and I was beefy enough to tank hits taken due to slow swings.

Having to grind upgrade materials for every new weapon you pick sure is bothersome. Despite the game's general jank, the upgrade chip system in Hellpoint was a nice feature. You simply take the chip you've been upgrading out of your old weapon and put it into the new one. The need for commitment reduces the desire to experiment.

Lords 2023 has way more build options than I had imagined. Your inventory gets clogged up from all kinds of trinkets, weapons, and gear pieces. I suppose I could've emptied all the unused stuff into the stash chest you get. The experimentation is a good incentive to replay the game -- another is all the side quests you can't complete in the same run due to exclusive choices.

Scooping from the genre's defining titles

It's amazing how obscure and convoluted a lot of the quests are. I'm guessing Hexworks was heavily copying FromSoftware in that. You can most likely get to the default Radiant ending without looking anything up on the Intertubes but figuring everything else out by yourself would be an enormous effort. Would it really be too much to have at least a journal that tells where an NPC might have wandered off or give you an update that an item you looted could be given to someone to progress a quest?

One thing I've seen often talked about when a new soulslike is coming out is hitstop, i.e. the slight pause when weapon connects with something. This game certainly has it. When you execute a multiple opponents hitting swing, the hitstop feels maybe even too extensive, like a thing from much older titles.

I started the game on controller -- for which it's clearly made -- but had to switch to mouse and keyboard. I just couldn't handle the sprint toggle being a left stick click. Made platforming impossible for me. And I'm really hesitant to ever start messing with controller button rebinds because there's never unused ones and rebinding something else as well could lead to trouble. In the early game you don't know how the game will want to use all its buttons and you could develop muscle memory for something that you'd need to eventually switch. Mouse and keyboard worked perfectly fine, although you do need to do some rebinding first. The sprint and jump keys aren't in their standardized defaults. Someone once again half-assed things for keyboard.

Lords of the Fallen (2023) didn't leave me with a desire to immediately replay it. I was just happy I managed to get through it. I guess I might maybe buy it one day eventually to beat it thoroughly but for now, this one run on Game Pass will more than suffice. A 100% clear in this game will certainly be a considerable undertaking with all the easy to break quest chains and the game modifiers added in a post release update that came with related achievements.

A sequel was already announced too: instead of getting a running number, it will be called Death of the Fallen. Epic Games will be funding it and thus it will most likely be exclusive to their launcher. I wonder how that will go, considering their recent statements that many of the exclusivity deals they've done haven't been all that profitable.