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Launched in 2014, the unique Lords of the Fallen was solely ever mentioned compared to its contemporaries – From Software program’s Demon’s Souls and Darkish Souls, and it is honest to say that these comparisons weren’t at all times flattering. Within the almost decade since, nonetheless, many different studios have tried the identical feat; to supply one other tackle the gameplay model that has continued to be popularized by From Software program and their contemporaries. Lords of the Fallen (the brand new one) is after all a lot of the identical – however this time round, studio HEXWORKS wasn’t simply content material to observe the identical path that others have adopted, and primarily based off the a number of hours we had an opportunity to get our fingers on the sport final month throughout a preview occasion in Los Angeles, California – followers of the style have one thing to sit up for.

From the get-go, certainly one of Lords of the Fallen (2023)’s rapid eye catches is the addition of the twin realms system. Overlayed on high of one another is 2 variations of the identical sport world; that of the residing, and of the lifeless. Utilizing the ability of the lantern you wield you’ll be able to spotlight from the land of the residing a bit of the identical space within the land of the lifeless, and it is this core gameplay ingredient that’s on the coronary heart of Lords of the Fallens best enchancment – stage design.

Typically, the trail ahead requires gamers to contemplate how each realms work together with one another. For example; the land of the lifeless fully lacks water, so if you end up face-to-face with a dead-end resulting in a lake, you would possibly have to transition to the land of the lifeless by invoking a spell that may basically kill your participant character. When within the land of the residing, dying will as a substitute transition the participant character to the land of the lifeless – providing an opportunity so that you can proceed with out dropping progress, assuming that you would be able to forestall one other loss of life from occurring earlier than discovering a statue within the atmosphere that may help you return to the opposite realm.

Some traversal puzzles would require gamers to make the transition between realms manually, and even once you aren’t tasked with fully making the bounce throughout realms, puzzles would possibly require you to make use of the lantern to test your environment within the different realm; perhaps there is a construction in one which’s not in one other. Possibly a gate would possibly block your path, however by utilizing the lantern to gentle the best way you’ll be able to stroll proper by way of it. The lantern has different talents, too; like the ability to tear the soul from an enemy’s physique, providing the chance to deal larger injury inside a brief time frame.

One promising side of the extent design is the way it employs a trick that From Software program has been well-known for using; having the degrees horizon level to the place you’ll be able to and needs to be heading. One unintended take a look at of the sport’s verticality got here from once we fell off a ledge throughout a bit of the world that was constructed right into a cliff face – in some way we clipped by way of a loss of life wall all the best way to what gave the impression to be a boss area all the best way under, although the collision with the bottom did shortly ship us again to our final checkpoint. It jogged my memory of the Depths and Blighttown from the unique Darkish Souls in all the most effective methods, and out of every little thing from our preview, it left me probably the most assured that HEXWORKS is off on the best foot with the sport’s stage design.

From a fight perspective, Lords of the Fallen seems like a significant step up from its predecessor. There’s nonetheless a weight to its fight, however lighter weapons have the suitable responsiveness to them that you’d anticipate, and issues really feel typically extra in step with – for instance – From Software program’s more moderen releases with Darkish Souls 3 and Elden Ring. A minimum of as far as we had the possibility to play, controls had been by no means an actual concern for a way the sport felt to play. They felt responsive, and whereas it was actually completely different from different motion RPGs that I’ve performed, that is not at all times a foul factor – the one actual criticism I might need with the fight early on is the inclusion of a mechanic the place gamers must cope with bugs current inside the land of the lifeless earlier than they’ll injury enemies buffed by them. I want to hope that there could be different strategies of coping with them within the full sport; although, it is potential that in a co-op setting, they’re much less distracting than when taking part in the sport solo.

Equally, boss fights had been typically good – although some animation quirks and a propensity for sure enemies to remain simply out of attain of melee within the air do depart us with some trepidation for a way later fights would possibly really feel when focusing as a melee fighter. For the report, we did take out one boss fairly shortly by making use of poison arrows – however simply because we had been in a position to, does not essentially imply we’re comfortable that it was the trail of least resistance. Significantly when our makes an attempt at preventing her with melee felt much less fruitful for maybe the flawed causes.

Whereas we did not have the possibility to check the function ourselves, we had been informed that one of many core tenets of Lords of the Fallen is the flexibility to play the complete sport in seamless co-op. With the twin realms system in place, one caveat is that the world state will depend upon the host; if the host dies, each characters will transition to the realm of the lifeless, and if a visitor dies, they’re going to merely disappear till the host both rests or finds a statue within the realm of the lifeless to transition again to the residing. Even after having had the possibility to take a seat down and focus on the sport with a number of the devs, we’ll must see the way it all feels in follow – for now, we’re left pondering the system primarily based on what we’ve got heard from the builders.

Visually, Lords of the Fallen is already gorgeous, even in its uneven pre-release state; the sport runs on Unreal Engine 5, and makes use of a set of applied sciences out there to the engine, together with Nanite and Lumen. We did not handle to seize the total specs of the PCs we performed the sport on, nevertheless it did look like working on an RTX 4080 at 4K, max settings, and performing round what we might anticipate for a sport with this constancy. Per the settings, the sport was not utilizing DLSS, and not less than we had been informed that this was in truth the case for what we performed. Equally, we had been informed that measures are in place to counteract shader compilation stutters – although as with all ready demo, our experiences with the preview needs to be taken with a grain of salt – and that we should always wait till we have had an opportunity to play the total sport earlier than saying for positive whether or not the sport suffers much-dread stuttering on PC.

There’s much more we’ve got left to see, however not less than to this point Lords of the Fallen feels prefer it has discovered so much from the video games which have come earlier than – all whereas making an attempt one thing genuinely new for the style. Whereas there are features of the sport that we’re anxious about, taken as an entire the sport seems to be shaping as much as be one thing followers of Darkish Souls and the unique sport alike needs to be trying ahead to. I do know I’m, and I am unable to wait to have the possibility to play it as soon as it launches on October 13 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X|S and PC.