General Gaming Lords of the Fallen (PC/Xbox Series/PS5) - "Master of Fate" (Version 1.5 Update) trailer

[eventide11]

Wow. Maybe this won't suck. I liked the first but I wouldn't have cared or missed it if it never released

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 IGN has an "exclusive" extended cut of the gameplay reveal trailer:

 

 

[eventide11]

It LOOKS promising but IMO nobody has really gotten the souls like open world formula right. Except FS obviously. There's always some jank that takes away from the overall experience 

[skillzdadirecta]

11 minutes ago, eventide11 said:

It LOOKS promising but IMO nobody has really gotten the souls like open world formula right. Except FS obviously. There's always some jank that takes away from the overall experience 

There have been quite a few good ones besides the From developed games. Team Ninja and these guys have done some good ones. The Jedi games are pretty good games using the Souls formula too.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

[Keyser_Soze]

Paying for a 3D model viewer, very nice.

[Bacon]

I like how that's a gameplay trailer, but you barely get to see any steady shots of actual gameplay. FFXVI did the same thing. Lots of games do and it's annoying. Looks better than the OG, but some of the animations looked to have that underwater sluggishness that I thought the first game had.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Firewithin]

Interesting...didn't realize you go or switch between "worlds" 

[Bacon]

That looks a lot better than the LOTF that I remember. The visuals of the movement and animations are more appealing to me which drastically impacts how the player character feels to control.

[Mr.Vic20]

Yup,yup, I'm up for this! 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

25% discount for PC pre-orders at for GMG XP members.

[skillzdadirecta]

35 minutes ago, Bacon said:

That looks a lot better than the LOTF that I remember. The visuals of the movement and animations are more appealing to me which drastically impacts how the player character feels to control.

Yes the first game was a solid "budget Dark Souls". This one looks a LOT better. Day One for me. I enjoyed the first one despite the jank.

[best3444]

This will be utter shit. Quote me at release. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[skillzdadirecta]

10 hours ago, best3444 said:

This will be utter shit. Quote me at release. 

Yeah it won't. The first one wasn't and this looks way better than that one. Is there anything in particular you're basing that on?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Xbob42]

The animations still look slide-y, tween-y and floaty. I get no sense of weight from them, even when they do a slow section of an animation to sell the weight, it still lacks the body's follow-through and everything. It's hard to explain as I'm not an animator but it still looks jank as hell.

[skillzdadirecta]

The Two world mechanic here is pretty interesting. Game is giving me a lot of Dark Souls one vibes. EDIT: That fire based Melee build used in the demo looked pretty cool. The first game had these claw weapons you could get that changed the gameplay dramatically and speed it up. This build looks similar but with the addition of the fire magic.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[skillzdadirecta]

26 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Looking good.

[Dexterryu]

I'm intrigued but definitely waiting for reviews. No "Soulslike" from anyone outside of FromSoft has made has never felt quite right, especially in the combat department.

[skillzdadirecta]

Lords of the Fallen: Hands-On Preview - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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This new Lords of the Fallen is shaping up to be an impressive Soulslike that's looking to make a brand new mark on the genre it was a part of way back in its infancy.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Preview articles:

 

In a post-Elden Ring world, does Lords of the Fallen have what it takes?

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Eurogamer's hands-on preview of the new Lords of the Fallen.

 

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I've played a couple of hours of new Lords of the Fallen and crucially, I can tell you it's: good. If you've played a Soulslike before - or as Hexworks wisely describes the genre, which extends to Nioh, The Surge and the rest, tactical action-RPGs - it'll be immediately familiar. You can create a character from one of several preset classes, ranging from glass cannon mages to sword-and-shield warriors, with some more lore-y archetypes in between with a little clan-based backstory behind them: a raven-like archer, a brawler with a twist of wolves.

 

You'll put points into stats as you level up - which you do at Vestiges, Lords of the Fallen's take on bonfires, that also act as fast travel points and places to rest and heal up. You'll do a little dodge or a big dodge, conserve your stamina, create a fraction of free time to swig your healing brew, maybe fire off a perfect parry. There will be mini-bosses, multi-stage, transformative boss fights, and sneaky little scumbags poking you in the back from their hiding place behind doors. The problem is "good" might not be good enough.

 

 

 

I played 4 hours of Lords of the Fallen's upcoming reboot, and its weird world-hopping lantern is a nitrous boost to a well-worn formula | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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A window to another world.

 

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A lot of studios have tried to jury-rig their own-brand Dark Souls. I'm happy to report that, after four hours with Lords of the Fallen's 2023 reboot, Hexwork's new take doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, its devs are building a custom ride using a tried-and-true frame, with a big hunk of weird Umbral nitrous strapped to its engine.

 

Lords of the Fallen has a troubled past. Its namesake, a 2014 attempt at the soulslike genre, was viewed by some gamers to be a hollow imitation of the real thing—one of the first outsiders to take a stab at cashing in on the surprise successes of Demon Souls and Dark Souls.

 

The twin ghosts of double-A jank and accusations of being a "rip-off" have loomed over its release to this day, and I imagine my response to news of a remake was the same as many others—"Huh, really? Lords of the Fallen? Okay, but why not start fresh with a new IP?" But the folks at CI Games and Hexworks know their own history, and after spending some time with Lords of the Fallen, I think they're far from doomed to repeat it.

 

 

 

Lords Of The Fallen's magical lantern could make it a top Soulslike contender

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We got hands-on with Lords Of The Fallen, a Soulslike with a realm-hopping premise and a whole lot of promise.

 

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Lords Of The Fallen is a curious sequel/reboot of the 2014 Lords Of The Fallen. It takes the Soulslike credentials of the original, gives them a grittier makeover, a much bigger world, and a magical lantern that reveals a gnarlier version of the universe you can actually step into.

 

Having spent roughly 90-minutes with the game, I'd say it has strong Dark Souls 2 energy mixed with a realm-hopping gimmick that's surprisingly impressive. While it's definitely too early to make big claims, I could see LOTF as a genuine competitor in the saturated Soulslike arena.

 

 

 

Lords Of The Fallen Proves The Soulslike Formula Is Getting Tired

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Lords of the Fallen is an accomplished game, but only truly shines when it eschews genre conventions to try something new

 

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There’s nothing wrong with this, Lords of the Fallen is an accomplished game. It plays well, and looks good while doing it. It’s not unoriginal, just clearly inspired. But at what point does this grow a little tired? FromSoftware itself is innovating and iterating – Elden Ring was a massive departure from its classic formula in many ways, and further from Dark Souls than many Soulslikes made by other developers. It didn’t surprise me, then, that Lords of the Fallen excited me most when it eschewed its inspirations and changed up the tired formula to try something new.

 

Lord of the Fallen is fairly formulaic Soulslike with great presentation. If you like the genre, you’re sure to pick this up and have a ball. But it’s only when you lift up your lantern and the underworld of Umbral rears its head that this hardcore game really shines, and I wish more Soulslikes would lean further into what makes them unique, rather than riffing on their inspirations for a little too long.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen Preview – Shining a lantern on this rebooted Souls-like

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We go hands on with the Lords of the Fallen reboot, a modernised Souls-like with a unique parallel undead world to explore and battle in.

 

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Lords of the Fallen’s most intriguing new gameplay element is the Umbral plane, a purgatorial land of the dead that exists behind every part of the living plane of Axiom, that you can and will need to step into at various times to navigate the world. At times there will be an impervious barrier in the Umbral realm that you cannot pass in the living, at other times bodies of water exist in the living world that aren’t there in the dead, and enemies that you face could have buffs and support from Umbral parasites.

 

You’ve got three ways to reach into this world, pretty much whenever you like. A magical glowing lantern is given to you at the very start of the game, letting you shine a light on the world around you that reveals the desaturated land of Umbral that surrounds you. This allows you to search for clues that you need to progress, to understand what alternative or unblocked paths there are in the environment, and to try to spot what’s making the weird sounds that are haunting you (it’s sometimes quite unsettling to hear creaky groaning from another realm).

 

Should you need to, the lantern can let you step through an Umbral Rift and step fully into this parallel world, where you can only emerge by finding a Vestige as a gateway back to Axiom. The third option (and what is actually happening when you use an Umbral Rift), is to die.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen's biggest achievement is how it rethinks the Souls-like death loop – PREVIEW

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In a packed genre, Lords of the Fallen 2023 makes a few daring changes that may rattle genre purist cages – but work in…

 

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The result is a hardcore action-RPG that has slightly more push-and-pull than its genre brethren. Death is not binary, here. Instead, it feels exciting – if you’re a great player that rarely dies, slipping into the Umbral against your will actually excites you; you get to see new areas, encounter new enemies, sniff out new puzzles. Of course, you can decide to spelunk the underworld on a whim and sink into death whenever you like, but getting back should always be a concern. And, it goes without saying, if you die in Umbral, you're spirited away back to a checkpoint (which, at this stage of playing, seem quite sparse).

The game is not as obscure as its FromSoft progenitors, and that works in its favour, because when you’re being pulled in two directions and interrogating the tension between worlds, you want a sense of what’s going on, and where to go.

 

 

Lords of the Fallen couldn’t work without the power of PS5, Xbox Series X/S: “The timing is perfect”

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Lords of the Fallen blurs the line between life and death, but its developer did not want to do the same with the lines…

 

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But of course, rendering two worlds at once and streaming two environmental sets of data is no mean feat. And, if it wasn’t for the unique featureset afforded by the hardware of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, it very likely couldn’t happen at all.

 

“It was a blessing for us, really, the new generation of consoles,” explains head of studio and executive producer at Hexworks, Saul Gascon. “The mix of PS5 and Xbox Series X/S and Unreal Engine 5… it was just [mimics a holy angel noise]. You know when the stars align? That hardware, and the ease of use with Unreal Engine 5 – we could not have done this without them.”

 

Gascon explains that it’s, specifically, the interactions between worlds that the team wanted to target with this game – that the Umbral part of Lords of the Fallen is the keystone upon which every other element of the game rests. “Narratively and mechanically, it’s integral. Streaming in both worlds at the same time and being able to interact with both? That’s why we’re only launching on these platforms, right?” he says. “Because if we try and put this on older hardware, it’s not going to work. You’re gonna pop into the Umbral and you’ll see like… black and white, or something. Or nothing! [laughter]”

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen is a dark fantasy epic that "makes death playable" | GamesRadar+

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Preview | Cezar Virtosu and Saúl Gascon talk approachability, Lovecraft, and creating a functional death

 

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The ability to rift between Umbral and Axiom, while giving you a second chance at life, isn't an accessibility feature in itself. The two worlds work separately, mechanically speaking; there's soul-flaying and soul-siphoning to do at specific moments while in the underworld, and back up in Axiom, there's a litany of perilous bosses to contend with.

 

"Instead of just finding a world and boom, you start and you get killed over and over and over, we have a smooth curve with its [difficulty] peaks like Pieta," says Gascon. Being the first proper boss you run into, Pieta is no joke. Her massive AOE attacks make me feel as if I'm shouting at clouds to keep from being rained on, waving around my little sword all the while. I confessed my repeated defeat at the hands of Pieta to Gascon and Virtosu, both nodding sympathetically. "She's a big peak. It's the first boss. It's a skill check," they offered.

 

Lords of the Fallen and Hexworks look set to succeed at something many Soulslike creators have struggled to pull off for years: changing up the genre in a meaningful, interesting way that adds rather than detracts from a classic experience. There's enough newness to make Lords of the Fallen stand out as unique, but enough commonality between it and some of the best FromSoftware games that even the most brazen of Souls vets should feel right at home in its sprawling, dangerous world(s). Just don't stop and stare for too long down in Umbral; if you're unlucky, it stares right back. 

 

 

 

The New Lords Of The Fallen Is The Most Direct Interpretation Of Dark Souls Yet - GameSpot

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In a world full of Souls-likes, a new Lords of the Fallen wears the inspiration on its sleeve, but brings with it some cool new twists along the way.

 

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An impressive showcase of how Lords of the Fallen is doing things better this time around is in the very first boss fight against Pieta, She of the Blessed Renewal. Pieta's a knight that towers over you and wields light-based magic utilized in swift, far-reaching strikes of her sword, devastating AoE spells, and summoned avatars. Of course, there's a second phase to the fight where she transforms into an angel-like being who soars across the combat arena and casts even more dynamic light spells that home in on you. Defeating her turned out to be the kind of challenge expected of the genre's greats--it took me three tries, but with each attempt I felt myself getting better, gradually excelling at reacting to her attacks, rather than succumbing to cheap tricks and banging my head against the wall.

 

There are several ways to build yourself in Lords of the Fallen thanks to a fluid RPG system that, again, is reminiscent of the Souls games. While you choose a class template when creating your character, it doesn't necessarily dictate how your character grows, rather it provides a starting point and a direction you can take as you progress. For the preview, I went with a class that mixed both a sword and bow for close-ranged melee and long-ranged flexibility--it felt suited enough to take on Pieta. This also means I wasn't able to explore the three-pronged magic system, nimble glass cannon-style builds, or any of the variations between.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen: Hands-On Preview - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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This new Lords of the Fallen is shaping up to be an impressive Soulslike that's looking to make a brand new mark on the genre it was a part of way back in its infancy.

 

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There’s a great fluidity to Lords of the Fallen’s combat too. You can seamlessly flow from light attacks to heavy attacks, and can even change weapon stance in the middle of a combo as well. I could start with two light attacks, press the stance switch button, and do another light attack, I’d get a unique attack in which my character seamlessly goes from a dual-wielded slash, into a two-handed thrust. This is even better when you add magic to the equation, as you’re able to easily swap between melee and magic attacks even mid-combo. It opens the door for a lot of freedom of expression through combat, which is something you don’t see all too often in the Soulslike genre.

 

I did have some issues with the camera making sudden, jerky corrections when I was locked on to an enemy, which threw me off occasionally, and the sound effects felt a little off, but outside of those minor nags, I had a great time with Lords of the Fallen’s combat. It is a bit more forgiving than most other Soulslikes I’ve played, with very generous parry windows, lots of invulnerability frames on your dodge roll, and enemy attacks that feel very deliberately timed to allow you to just get out of the way if you dodge right after you attack. But that said, there’s a lot of challenge that comes from the level design and the situations you’re put in.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen: A Deep Dive Into the Umbral Realm | IGN First - IGN

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We take an extended look at one of Lords of the Fallens most unique mechanics: The Umbral Realm.

 

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At the heart of Lords of the Fallen is the existence of two parallel realms: The realm of the living, Axiom, and the realm of the dead, Umbral. What makes them special in gameplay is the ability of the player to both reach across, and fully transition between those realms. But there’s a lot more to Umbral than just a Stranger Things-esque Upside Down dimension with creepy tendrils and eyeballs following you wherever you go. So let’s raise our lamps into the unknown and do a deep dive into Lords of the Fallen’s most unique element.

 

 

Lords of the Fallen: What Starting Class Should You Pick? | IGN First - IGN

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A breakdown of the starting classes in Lords of the Fallen (2023), complete with commentary from the developers at Hexworks themselves.

 

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One of the most important decisions you'll make in any Soulslike is what to go with for your starting class. Ultimately, you'll be able to adjust your character to whatever build you want by levelling up your stats, but your starting class affects your playstyle where it often matters most: Right at the beginning of the game. It determines your starting stats, the weapon you'll likely use for the first few hours, the type of armor you'll wear, what kind of magic you'll wield, and what items you'll start the game with.

 

It's the kind of decision you'll want to make an informed choice about, so to that end, we asked Hexworks themselves to breakdown the starting classes of Lords of the Fallen and give some recommendations as to what classes might fit a particular player's style.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen (2023) is shaping up to be more than just its inspirations | RPG Site

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HEXWORKS follow-up to 2014's release beats to its own drum, as much as it follows the lead of others.

 

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From a combat perspective, Lords of the Fallen feels like a major step up from its predecessor. There's still a weight to its combat, but lighter weapons have the appropriate responsiveness to them that you would expect, and things feel generally more in line with - as an example - From Software's more recent releases with Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring. At least so far as we had the chance to play, controls were never a real concern for how the game felt to play. They felt responsive, and while it was certainly different from other action RPGs that I've played, that isn't always a bad thing - the only real complaint I might have with the combat early on is the inclusion of a mechanic where players have to deal with insects present within the land of the dead before they can damage enemies buffed by them. I would like to hope that there might be alternative methods of dealing with them in the full game; though, it's possible that in a co-op setting, they're less distracting than when playing the game solo.

 

Similarly, boss fights were generally good - though some animation quirks and a propensity for certain enemies to stay just out of reach of melee in the air do leave us with some trepidation for how later fights might feel when focusing as a melee fighter. For the record, we did take out one boss rather quickly by making use of poison arrows - but just because we were able to, doesn't necessarily mean we're happy that it was the path of least resistance. Particularly when our attempts at fighting her with melee felt less fruitful for perhaps the wrong reasons.

 

 

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Visually, Lords of the Fallen is already stunning, even in its uneven pre-release state; the game runs on Unreal Engine 5, and uses a suite of technologies available to the engine, including Nanite and Lumen. We didn't manage to grab the full specs of the PCs we played the game on, but it did appear to be running on an RTX 4080 at 4K, max settings, and performing around what we would expect for a game with this fidelity. Per the settings, the game was not using DLSS, and at least we were told that this was in fact the case for what we played. Similarly, we were told that measures are in place to counteract shader compilation stutters - though as with any prepared demo, our experiences with the preview should be taken with a grain of salt - and that we should wait until we've had a chance to play the full game before saying for sure whether the game suffers much-dread stuttering on PC.

 

 

How Lords of the Fallen improves the "death cycle" of soulslikes

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Lords of the Fallen may share a name with its 2014 predecessor—but it's trying new tactics to stand out in a sea of Dark Souls-inspired games.

 

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Compared to the first, the reboot is a far more refined and responsive game with its combat mechanics and the number of options you develop for your character. It's a game that shows an awareness of the current trends that have been present in more recent Souls games, much more than the original's nascent framework of a burgeoning sub-genre. When playing this reboot, and getting settled into its revised flow, it felt closer in line with FromSoftware's work on the Souls games than with the original Lords of the Fallen.

 

The biggest twist Lords of the Fallen (2023) adds to the soulslike formula, taking it more into an adventure genre, is the horror-esque Umbral realm. With the developers citing Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver as influences, players can use a spectral lamp to peer into or shift briefly into the more hostile parallel realm of Umbral to reveal hidden objects, secret passages, and even new enemies that are not seen in the mortal world.

 

This additional realm not only introduces an element of advanced traversal and puzzle-solving to dungeons but also creates a buffer following a defeat. Once you die in the normal realm, you get kicked into the Umbral realm and have one last chance at a comeback. By stepping into the Umbral realm, you're seen as an invader, and Umbral foes will come at you, slowly, in numbers—which is seen in a wanted level-esque meter that gradually fills up. The only way to fully return to the moral realm is to retrieve your fallen body or defeat a boss that's taken up residence in the area.

 

 

 

Lords of the Fallen (2023) Preview - An Exciting Transformation - Game Informer

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We went hands-on with Hexworks' upcoming Soulslike, Lords of the Fallen, for roughly two hours to check out its unique twist on the genre.

 

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I start my journey with the Blackfeather Ranger, which prioritizes versatility over a single-focus approach and is also the Bloodborne-esque hunter seen in various trailers. Unsurprisingly, this ranger is fast and agile, using a sleek ax and small shield. 

 

Overall, Lords of the Fallen’s combat feels great. Its action is fast and versatile, its parry timing is generous, as are the effects of blocking, and the world is full of surprises and secrets, both of the “surprise enemy jumps out to scare you” and, “Ooh a treasure chest” variety. 

 

What sets Lords of the Fallen apart from the rest of the genre, and what has me most excited for the full release, is its two-world system. Axiom is the world of the living, which creative director Cezar Virtosu tells me is completely connected through shortcuts, hidden paths, and more. It’s metal as hell, full of dark catacombs and terrifying gothic cathedrals that ooze atmosphere. But it’s also sometimes bright, revealing a beautiful landscape dotted with castle peaks and mausoleum spires I hope to arrive at later in my journey. In the simplest terms, it’s the world you expect of a game like this. 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Preview videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[best3444]

You should put that in spoilers so we don't have to scroll down so much. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Information highlights from the previews:

 

• Two realm mechanic; Use lamp to travel to the dark realm Umbral
• Upon death, respawn in Umbral for a final stand or to flee. Devs wanted to innovate on the traditional 'You Died' screen
• Two realm mechanic affects combat and puzzles as well; Soul Flay ability lets you pull out an enemy's soul and damage them directly
• Character creator with 10 starting classes
• Up to 4 magic or ranged abilities assigned to D-Pad
• Uninterrupted 2 player co-op
• Confirmed to be using UE5 features like Lumen and Nanite

[eventide11]

Is see IGN FIRST and I throw up in my mouth.

 

But it looks promising 

[skillzdadirecta]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Lords of the Fallen Runs at 1440P@30FPS or 1080P@60FPS on Consoles; Dev Says UE5 Is a 'Huge Leap' in Tech

WCCFTECH.COM

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Lords of the Fallen will run at 2K@30FPS and 1080P@60FPS on consoles. The developers boasted the 'huge tech leap' enabled by Unreal Engine 5.

 

 

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Saul Galscon: On both consoles, we offer performance and quality modes. The performance mode goes at 60 frames per second and 1080p resolution upscaled, which is kind of the standard in the industry. The quality mode is 2K (1440P) upscaled, running at 30 FPS. But even if you play at 60, Lords of the Fallen looks really good.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[best3444]

Looks identical to a Souls game. Extremely iffy about this.

[eventide11]

9 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Well that looks.... Surprisingly good. But we'll see 

[skillzdadirecta]

 

This guy is REALLY big on this game.