One of Dark Souls' earliest imitators, Lords of the Fallen, is getting a reboot

Lords of the Fallen, one of the earliest games to challenge the Dark Souls series, is getting a reboot.

Announced at Gamescom, The Lords of the Fallen is a reboot of 2014's Lords of the Fallen, developed by CI Games. Set more than a thousand years after the events of the first game, the reboot offers a significantly increased scope - CI Games promises a "vast, interconnected world," that's more than five times bigger than the original. Whether it can compete with Elden Ring's enormous Lands Between remains to be seen, but the interconnectivity certainly harks back to one of the most exciting parts of Dark Souls' map.

The trailer focuses on the way in which the world has changed in the millennia since Lords of the Fallen. Even in defeat, Gods do not stay dead forever, and the influence of those you felled a thousand years before is being felt once again, corrupting the land in spite of the thousand-year effort to keep the dead, dead.

Lords of the Fallen released in 2014, three years after the original Dark Souls. Arguably, that makes it the 'original' Soulslike - the first game to borrow the gameplay and internal mythology of the likes of Dark Souls and Demons Souls. While that genre is a much busier space now than it was eight years ago, Lords of the Fallen got there well before the likes of Nioh or Chronos, and even ahead of indie hits like Titan Souls or Salt and Sanctuary.

There's an obvious Soulslike vibe to the trailer, which should come as no surprise. Whether it's the grim mythology, the lone hero, the vicious combat, or the hard-as-nails boss fights, The Lords of the Fallen is still bearing homage to FromSoft's efforts. Last time out, the attempt was competent, but struggled to cut through Dark Souls' dominance, even with the series' relative low-point around Dark Souls 2, so it'll be interesting to see how the reboot fares in the shadow of Elden Ring.

There's no release date currently set for The Lords of the Fallen, but it's coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC via Steam.

Want to see for yourself? Here's our list of the best games like Dark Souls.