Lords of the Fallen (2023 video game)

Lords of the Fallen is an action role-playing video game developed by Hexworks and published by CI Games. A successor to the 2014 video game of the same name, the game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 13 October 2023. Upon release, it received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and sold over one million units in the first ten days since release.

Gameplay
Lords of the Fallen is an action role-playing video game played from a third-person perspective. Like its predecessor, players can use both melee weapons and magic to defeat enemies, and the game's gameplay and combat system adopted elements from Soulslike games. The game's campaign can also be completed cooperatively with another player. The game also features a player-versus-player multiplayer mode.

At the beginning of the game, players can create and customize their own player avatar, and choose from one of nine character classes. The game is set in an interconnected world, one that is several times bigger than that from the 2014 game. In this game, two worlds are layered on top of each other. The world of Axiom is the realm of the living, but players can use a magical lantern to access Umbral, the realm of the dead. Despite sharing the same physical space, an inaccessible area in one realm may be reached by visiting the other realm. When the player is killed, they will be transported to Umbral in which they must return to Axiom and retrieve lost experience points. When the player is killed in the Umbral realm, they will respawn in their last savepoint and lose their unspent XPs. Savepoints are far and few in each region, though players can craft their own savepoints using materials collected from Umbral monsters.

Plot
After eons under the rule of Adyr, dark god of the demonic Rhogar, the followers of Orious the radiance god rose against him; unable to kill him, they sealed him away. One of Orious' finest warriors, Judge Cleric, established the order of the Hallowed Sentinels to watch over five magic beacons in the land of Mournstead to prevent Adyr from reviving. Over the ages, however, the once-righteous Sentinels become corrupted and tyrannical themselves.

Over a thousand years after Adyr's defeat, his return looms nearer as the beacons become tainted by his influence, and the Rhogar begin to infest the land. A sect of the Sentinels, the Dark Crusaders, acquires a powerful artifact to prevent this: the Umbral Lamp, which has the power to resurrect its user, allow them to travel between the realms of the living (Axiom) and the dead (Umbral), pull the souls out of enemies, and activate Stigmas, fragments of past events. However, when its previous bearer is killed, it comes into the possession of the main character: the Lamp Bearer. Exacter Dunmire, head of the Crusaders, recruits them to travel across Mournstead and cleanse the beacons with the Lamp, using it to absorb Adyr's essence at each one.

Each beacon is guarded by formidable enemies; each must be defeated to progress to the respective beacon, but the Bearer does not need to immediately interact with them. The wide world is fraught with dangerous animals, monsters, demons, cults, and even the corrupted forces of the Sentinels. Enemies and allies can be made throughout the journey, with some of the latter potentially turning against the Bearer. The beacon in the Empyrean, the Sentinel's headquarters, is guarded by none other than Judge Cleric herself; partway through the battle, she is revealed to be entirely corrupted, just like the rest of the order. Once known as Iselle, she had been a warrior priestess of Adyr before betraying him to side with Orious.

There are three endings one can achieve depending on choices made throughout the game:


 * "Radiant": If the Bearer has used the Lamp to cleanse at least one of the beacons, they can storm Bramis Castle and enter the Rhogar realm and face Adyr. The dark god attempts to reason that humanity needs a god to guide them; however, unlike Orious and the Sentinels, he at least offers humanity a choice and the truth. Nevertheless, the Bearer subdues Adyr and uses the Lamp to absorb his essence; they are themselves obliterated in the process while Orious rains beams of radiance to purge all who have transgressed in his eyes, with no sin going unpunished.


 * "Inferno": instead of cleansing the beacons, the Bearer can use an item called the Rune of Adyr to break them. After defeating Cleric, the Bearer can enter her dream as Iselle and allow Adyr to possess her body, granting him a vessel and vengeance on her for betraying him. Ruling the world once more, the dark god makes the Bearer one of his Rhogar lords.
 * "Umbral": rather than side with either god, the Bearer can enter Umbral and locate a dark priest named Molhu, who created the Lamp, and gain access to a strange area called Mother's Lull. From there, the Bearer sacrifices a number of important persons to meet the Putrid Mother, an unspeaking, god-like eldritch being. The creature devours the Bearer's essence, using it to shatter the veil between Axiom and Umbral so it can eventually consume all of creation, sparing nothing.

Development and release
In December 2014, Tomasz Gop, the executive producer of Lords of the Fallen (2014), confirmed the development of a sequel, Lords of the Fallen 2. In May 2015, CI Games announced that the game would be released in 2017, and confirmed that Deck13 Interactive, the lead developer of the first game, would not be involved. Gop revealed in 2017 that the game spent two years on concept stage, and that CI Games has significantly downsized the development team and reduced the scope of the game following the disappointing release of Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3. CI Games announced that Defiant Studios will lead the game's development in 2018, and that they would restart the game's development from scratch. However, CI Games terminated its contract with Defiant one year later, as it deemed their works on the game "inadequate". CI Games then founded Hexworks in 2020, led by Saul Gascon, executive producer, and Cezar Virtosu, creative director, to work on the game. Lords of the Fallen was developed using Unreal Engine 5. The game cost $66.2 million to develop, market and produce the physical edition.

The game was officially revealed by CI Games during Gamescom 2022 as The Lords of the Fallen. It was then rebranded as simply Lords of the Fallen in March 2023. Virtosu revealed that the game was once named Lords of the Fallen: The Dark Crusade, though the studio dropped this name for not reflecting the game's status as a reboot of the series. Hexworks had high ambitions for the game, with Virtosu adding that the studio set out to be "the second reference [after FromSoftware]" for the Soulsborne genre by making "Dark Souls 4.5". It was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 13 October 2023.

Reception
Lords of the Fallen received "generally favorable" reviews for the PC version from critics, while the PS5 version received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

The GamesRadar reviewer does not see "any relatable characters to latch onto" in the game, and the game's world seems for him to be "stuck somewhere between Blasphemous and all the black-mana cards from Magic: The Gathering". He writes the game's greatest strength is probably combat and that it is a nice feel to hit a blow. The reviewer describes the system of two worlds as "clever stuff that's implemented well". As far as performance is concerned, the reviewer wrote that "even on a robust desktop" he was forced to "turn down the graphics fairly significantly". He sums up, that the game's "clear aspirations to be Dark Souls 4 might have been a little ambitious". GameStar's reviewer, on the other hand, feels that the possibility of opening a window to the world of the dead alone makes "a harmonious world design".

PC Gamer's reviewer also likes the idea of the lamp used to cross between two worlds, even though he feels that "Hexworks could've done more with the concept". He also writes that using the lamp didn't give performance problems, and the game generally ran smoothly. He likes different effects of using different weapons. According to the PC Gamer's reviewer, the magic system in the game is "a genuine improvement over other soulslikes in almost every way". The reviewer claims the combat system "shines in the game's duels against humanoid bosses". He considers fights with the bosses to be fair, but the rest of the game to be too difficult.

Sales
Lords of the Fallen sold over one million units in the first ten days since release.

Sequel
A sequel for the game is set to be released in 2026.