The Lords of the Fallen was one of Gamescom's more surprising reveals. A cinematic trailer outlined a reboot set 1,000 years after the original game - Lords of the Fallen - which launched in 2014 to minimal fanfare. But if you found yourself intrigued by the Opening Night Live showing, right now is a pretty good time to check a title that is, arguably, the original Souls-like.
Lords of the Fallen had a tough task ahead of it. As pretty much the first deliberately difficult, distinctly gothic, combat-focused RPG to launch after 2011's Dark Souls, it placed itself at the starting point of an entire subgenre. The concept of a 'Souls-like' only has meaning in the wake of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, and while FromSoft's Soulsborne titles have a particular pedigree, a long line of imitators have since emerged, often boasting their own twist on the formula, but also struggling to capture the magic of the original games.
As the first of such games, Lords of the Fallen also released barely six months after Dark Souls 2, and the direct comparison to even the least-beloved Soulsborne title likely didn't help its case. But having played for a few hours thanks to an 85% discount on Steam that runs through this weekend (down to $4.49/£3.56), I've been pleasantly surprised.
- Steam Next Fest hasn’t even started, but I’m already obsessed with the subtly Soulslike demo for this “hardcore” action RPG with over 3,000 reviews of its own
- An apparent ex-FromSoftware dev has a janky action RPG in Steam Next Fest, so obviously I had to play it – and yep, the opening shot is straight out of Dark Souls
Sure, it's no Elden Ring. It's not even Dark Souls Remastered. Where FromSoft crafted its game with a scalpel, Deck 13 has opted for a more blunt approach. Combat is a little clunkier than Dark Souls' offering, and Lords of the Fallen is far less subtle in its narrative and tutorialisation. For all that, however, it's already proving a pretty good time. I've found a very silly build involving a lot of bonus agility and a pair of fantasy knuckledusters, and I'm enjoying jabbing my way through everything in my path.
Given the suggestion that The Lords of the Fallen is a reboot, it's far from clear how much of this original game will be visible when its follow-up eventually arrives, but even this week's reveal trailer offers some fairly obvious throwbacks to its source material. If you're curious about one of the bigger new Soulslikes on the horizon, or just want to dodge-roll around some horrid monsters somewhere other than The Lands Between, you could certainly do worse.
