Lords of the Fallen is a souls-like made by new developer Hexworks. The title has all the same tropes of a Demon/Dark Souls or Elder Ring offering, including fierce combat, spells, weaponry, numerous and hideous enemies, as well as monstrous bosses. You'll have to master various skills in order to banish the dark, demon god, Adyr, from Mournstead and cleanse the land of the evil that has infected every aspect of life. Along the way, you'll recruit allies that will assist you in accumulating gear or combating bosses. You'll also use a powerful spiritual instrument called an Umbral Lamp, that will allow you to become functionally immortal and to travel the umbral spirit plane to proceed on your quest. As a Lampbearer, you will harness the power of the cosmic horror Putrid Mother, to defeat Adyr before it is too late.

Combat in in Lords of the Fallen is similar to that in Dark Souls or Elden Ring. If you like the combat in the those other games and you're looking for more, you'll enjoy Lords of the Fallen, with a variety of light, heavy, charged and poised attacks, as well as blocking, parrying, dodging and other abilities that allow you to vanquish a variety of enemies. To improve your abilities, you'll gain experience that you can apply towards increasing your base statistics and you'll also be able to use catalysts to wield powerful spells. A myriad of weapons exist within Lords of the Fallen, including swords, hammers, maces, daggers, knives, spears, polearms, and a many different types of ranged weapons. You target opponents and attack with combos based on your build's strengths and abilities. For the most part, combat feels good.

Traversal is a bit more of a mixed bag, with mild platforming becoming an issue at times due to poor character response or limited camera controls. While the game's traversal includes sprinting, jumping and evading, be prepared to replay tracts of areas due to mistakes beyond your control. Additionally, enemies at times gain free hits and your strikes may sail harmlessly through targets. The environment may block your attacks but not those of your foes. The arbitrary nature of such events can become frustrating and, when taken into account with unblockable attacks, chain stun locks or other similar events, can lead to substantial displeasure with the game.

That isn't to say that such events happen all the time or that the combat is completely soiled by such concerns but it definitely detracts from the game. This is a shame because Lords of the Fallen employs a new innovation: umbral traveling, which really adds a new dimension to the game and elevates the exploratory aspects of Lords of the Fallen to new heights. By using the Umbral Lantern, you can see the spirit world, superimposed over the real plane, often illuminating obscured secrets or exposing hidden paths forwards. It's a neat mechanic and one that was used with substantial creativity. The lamp can even be used during combat to stagger or kill enemies. Traversal through the umbral plane is perilous however and, as you spend more and more time in the plane, you run the risk of alerting truly powerful entities of your location. Such creatures can slay you and allow you to lose all your progress until you can reacquire your lost vigor (XP).

Lords of the Fallen has beautiful graphics powered by Unreal Engine 5, with support for modern upscaling like FSR 3. The game has atmosphere in spades and is a far more mature, well fleshed-out aesthetic to Enden Ring's "Legend of Zelda" vibe. The voice acting, audio and sound track are all well executed and, as a whole, the game is reasonably performant. It's unfortunate that despite running well that the Lords of the Fallen has severe issues with AMD-based graphics cards, especially those that are based on Polaris or Vega architectures. The game mandates AMD drivers that are simply not available for Vega-based cards and towards my second play through, Lords of the Fallen began to crash routinely, over and over and over, every 5-10 minutes. Such an experience put a definite damper on my enjoyment of the game.

It's a shame because the moral, political, religious and conceptual aspects of the game's world are interesting and the world, in my opinion, is far more baroque and alluring than that of Elden Ring's more sterile atmosphere. The game even has cooperative and PVP multiplayer components. As a player, you can enter another gamer's campaign instance and challenge them to combat, impeding their progress and serving the will of Adyr. Conversely, friends can easily join instances together, meet at spawn points called Vestiges, and play through the campaign together. Such cooperative play isn't necessary but adds a new social and game play dynamic to Lords of the Fallen that allows it to operate more like Dungeons and Dragons at times than simply a coop souls-like.

All in all, despite its technical issues, Hexworks has done a great job with the unfairly maligned Lords of the Fallen. Combat, exploration and character building are fun and the developers hit it out of the park with both collaborative game mechanisms as well as innovations like umbral traversal. If you're looking for a great souls-like that will show you a few new things, you can do a lot worse than Lords of the Fallen.

Recommended!

8.5/10.
Really looking forward to Lords of the Fallen 2.

Lords of the Fallen is a souls-like made by new developer Hexworks. The title has all the same tropes of a Demon/Dark Souls or Elder Ring offering, including fierce combat, spells, weaponry, numerous and hideous enemies, as well as monstrous bosses. You'll have to master various skills in order to banish the dark, demon god, Adyr, from Mournstead and cleanse the land of the evil that has infected every aspect of life. Along the way, you'll recruit allies that will assist you in accumulating gear or combating bosses. You'll also use a powerful spiritual instrument called an Umbral Lamp, that will allow you to become functionally immortal and to travel the umbral spirit plane to proceed on your quest. As a Lampbearer, you will harness the power of the cosmic horror Putrid Mother, to defeat Adyr before it is too late. Combat in in Lords of the Fallen is similar to that in Dark Souls or Elden Ring. If you like the combat in the those other games and you're looking for more, you'll enjoy Lords of the Fallen, with a variety of light, heavy, charged and poised attacks, as well as blocking, parrying, dodging and other abilities that allow you to vanquish a variety of enemies. To improve your abilities, you'll gain experience that you can apply towards increasing your base statistics and you'll also be able to use catalysts to wield powerful spells. A myriad of weapons exist within Lords of the Fallen, including swords, hammers, maces, daggers, knives, spears, polearms, and a many different types of ranged weapons. You target opponents and attack with combos based on your build's strengths and abilities. For the most part, combat feels good. Traversal is a bit more of a mixed bag, with mild platforming becoming an issue at times due to poor character response or limited camera controls. While the game's traversal includes sprinting, jumping and evading, be prepared to replay tracts of areas due to mistakes beyond your control. Additionally, enemies at times gain free hits and your strikes may sail harmlessly through targets. The environment may block your attacks but not those of your foes. The arbitrary nature of such events can become frustrating and, when taken into account with unblockable attacks, chain stun locks or other similar events, can lead to substantial displeasure with the game. That isn't to say that such events happen all the time or that the combat is completely soiled by such concerns but it definitely detracts from the game. This is a shame because Lords of the Fallen employs a new innovation: umbral traveling, which really adds a new dimension to the game and elevates the exploratory aspects of Lords of the Fallen to new heights. By using the Umbral Lantern, you can see the spirit world, superimposed over the real plane, often illuminating obscured secrets or exposing hidden paths forwards. It's a neat mechanic and one that was used with substantial creativity. The lamp can even be used during combat to stagger or kill enemies. Traversal through the umbral plane is perilous however and, as you spend more and more time in the plane, you run the risk of alerting truly powerful entities of your location. Such creatures can slay you and allow you to lose all your progress until you can reacquire your lost vigor (XP). Lords of the Fallen has beautiful graphics powered by Unreal Engine 5, with support for modern upscaling like FSR 3. The game has atmosphere in spades and is a far more mature, well fleshed-out aesthetic to Enden Ring's "Legend of Zelda" vibe. The voice acting, audio and sound track are all well executed and, as a whole, the game is reasonably performant. It's unfortunate that despite running well that the Lords of the Fallen has severe issues with AMD-based graphics cards, especially those that are based on Polaris or Vega architectures. The game mandates AMD drivers that are simply not available for Vega-based cards and towards my second play through, Lords of the Fallen began to crash routinely, over and over and over, every 5-10 minutes. Such an experience put a definite damper on my enjoyment of the game. It's a shame because the moral, political, religious and conceptual aspects of the game's world are interesting and the world, in my opinion, is far more baroque and alluring than that of Elden Ring's more sterile atmosphere. The game even has cooperative and PVP multiplayer components. As a player, you can enter another gamer's campaign instance and challenge them to combat, impeding their progress and serving the will of Adyr. Conversely, friends can easily join instances together, meet at spawn points called Vestiges, and play through the campaign together. Such cooperative play isn't necessary but adds a new social and game play dynamic to Lords of the Fallen that allows it to operate more like Dungeons and Dragons at times than simply a coop souls-like. All in all, despite its technical issues, Hexworks has done a great job with the unfairly maligned Lords of the Fallen. Combat, exploration and character building are fun and the developers hit it out of the park with both collaborative game mechanisms as well as innovations like umbral traversal. If you're looking for a great souls-like that will show you a few new things, you can do a lot worse than Lords of the Fallen. Recommended! 8.5/10. Really looking forward to Lords of the Fallen 2.