It took 18 months and over 50 updates, but Lords of the Fallen finally added the one feature I wanted from this Soulslike RPG at launch: "full shared progression co-op"

Capping off a post-launch development journey which could rival actual early access games after "over 50 free updates," Lords of the Fallen version 2.0 recently added a boatload of new features and quality-of-life tweaks to a Soulslike action RPG that I previously rated as good but not great.

Billed as the definitive edition of the October 2023 release, 2.0 is crowned by something I desperately wanted on day one: "full shared progression co-op."

Co-op is something that Soulslikes have generally struggled with, and despite boasting of the best co-op in the genre, Lords of the Fallen redux left a friend and I feeling high and dry. You could play together, slightly more synchronously than in something like Elden Ring, but you couldn't truly progress together. Bosses and rewards were instanced, so any sort of co-op run required interminable hoop-jumping and reconnects.

In the end, my friend and I decided it wasn't worth it and just beat the game separately, exchanging anecdotes as grimdark medieval pen pals instead. But no more. "Embark on a seamless co-op journey with Shared Progression Co-op!" developer CI Games implores in update 2.0. Here's the rundown, straight from the patch notes:

• Both players now save all mainline progress.
• Join a fellow lampbearer via automatic matchmaking or adventure with a friend (must be on the same New Game playthrough and have defeated a similar number of bosses, within a margin of one).
• Option to play standard co-op without shared progression.
• Both players can revive each other, collect 100% vigor, and loot in all online sessions.
• Full crossplay support via password matchmaking.

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Okay, CI Games, I'll give it to you. This does genuinely sound like the best co-op experience in the whole genre. I'm eager to try it myself, especially because many of the game's plentiful previous updates already had me hankering for a replay.

I once described Lords of the Fallen as the most 3.5/5 game to ever get a 3.5/5, and its 64% positive Steam reviews (a whopping 24,390 of them) aren't undeserved, but I have fond memories of it. It's my kind of game, jank and all. With substantially less jank and markedly smarter features, it may one day reach the dizzying heights of mostly positive overall.

Elsewhere, this whopper of a patch refines combat and movement, tightens lock-on mechanics, adds a game-sharing crossplay friend pass to make co-op even more accessible, expands the character creator with more body types, and streamlines the UI. The new dynamic HUD, which can be totally disabled if you want maximum immersion and field of view, is another standout.

To the game's credit, this could've been another Code Vein (which I also enjoyed despite huge problems) that launched pretty janky and just sort of stayed that way, but Lords of the Fallen has demonstrably improved in the past year and change. It was always a heck of a lot better than the first Lords of the Fallen, that's for sure. Here's hoping the studio's next game can preclude the comeback arc by building on this evolution and folding in lessons like these before launch.

Even if it isn't a Soulslike, Phantom Blade Zero still wants to channel that "pre-Elden Ring" FromSoftware level design with secrets and layers.