With release just a couple of weeks away on 13th October, Lords of the Fallen has a new gameplay overview trailer. It’s a dripping, cheesily VO-d cinematic layer cake of gore and gristle that introduces you to the game’s god-blighted fantasy world and the many different ways you’ll expire within it – from having a boss inconsiderately drop a load of golden swords on you, to getting mobbed by underworld spooks according to an escalating “dread” level, which is sort of GTA’s old heat system but with more Grim Reapers.
The video also walks you through the game’s plane-shifting mechanics – a highlight of Ed Thorn’s time with the last preview build – and the broad strokes of the plot, in which some ancient evil deity the size of a continent is on the brink of being resurrected, and you have to light some beacons to settle him back down.
I have a reasonably good feeling about Lords of the Fallen, which is only partly to do with its being an accidental Soul Reaver sequel. While those walls of corpses and multiple-mawed demons have precedents in From’s work, the new game has both a more distinctive and a more engaging visual style than the 2014 Lords of the Fallen, which I found quite “double-A” in its chunkiness.
Lords of the Fallen continues what has been a pretty solid year for non-From Soulslikes. We’ve had Nioh follow-up Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, which Ed found to be “Team Ninja’s most approachable Soulslike yet”, Lies of P, which Ed also rather enjoyed for how it both imitates and stands apart from Bloodborne, and heck, let’s throw Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in there, which Alice Bee grudgingly conceded to be “an undeniably fun Star Wars sequel with a suitably epic story and smart combat, but a hell of a lot of busywork alongside it”.
The best could be yet to come. Who knows, maybe the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong (strictly, more of a Soulsvania) will creep out before year’s end.
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
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