Lords of the Fallen isn't perfect, but its flashes of Dark Souls 2 and Soul Reaver have lit a bonfire within me

After a marketing campaign that simultaneously distanced itself from its 2014 predecessor of the same name, and likewise celebrated its shared lineage, Lords of the Fallen (2023) is here. With CI Games once more in the publisher's seat, and Hexwork this time guiding development, this slant on Lords of the Fallen is a Soulslike action-RPG that really leans into its inspirations. Like, really leans into them. If you've read our Lords of the Fallen review, you'll know just how much FromSoftware's back catalog influences things here; and you'll already be aware of how and why our writer reckons that's sometimes good but often problematic. 

I'm only a few hours into my own quest to overthrow the demon God Adyr, therefore I'm not in a position to properly critique Lords of the Fallen as a whole. But what I will say is that Lords of the Fallen is giving me strong Dark Souls 2 and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver vibes – and as the Soulslike genre continues to grow and evolve, I'm pretty damn invested in the modest portion I've played so far myself.

Poor souls

Lords of the Fallen is dark, thematically and visually. To the latter end, it's possibly too dark, with everything I've played to this point projecting a grim aesthetic mix of the Souls series' most claustrophobic, least inspiring sprawls. It's not quite Dark Souls' Blighttown or Dark Souls 2's The Gutter levels of despair, but at the same time the stunning vistas and glowing white sandstone ruins that feature early doors in FromSoft's most acclaimed RPGs are yet to reveal themselves here so far. I understand the game's landscape does open up a little bit later on, to be fair, but the reason I'm making the comparison here is twofold: one, Lords of the Fallen is so shamelessly inspired by Soulsborne games it seems valid; and two, the shining light that's carried me through Lords of the Fallen's earliest stages is how I find it reminiscent of of Dark Souls 2.

Lords of the Fallen isn't necessarily the same as Dark Souls 2 in any specific way, but as someone pretty familiar with the Soulsborne series as a whole, it makes me feel how I felt exploring Drangleic for the very first time all those years ago. I must have spent 1,000+ hours combing FromSoft's most twisted worlds over the last decade or so – from Demon's Souls' Boletaria to Elden Ring's The Lands Between – and I've enjoyed the iterative curve that's improved everything from combat fluidity to level design and enemy difficulty in that time. Led by a different dev team than its other Souls games, however, Dark Souls 2 has long been considered the runt of the litter. 

Returning to Dark Souls 2 not long ago, the absence of key FromSoft figures – not least esteemed director Hidetaka Miyazaki who'd turned his attention to Bloodborne at the time – feels more apparent now than ever, with the game often feeling like a clone more than a counterpart. That's exactly how Lords of the Fallen feels to me in-hand: combat is nice, but a little unwieldy; movement is fine, but can be unresponsive; boss battles are bastard-hard, but occasionally unfair through no fault of your own; the world is well-designed, but linear and sometimes lacking continuity. Against Dark Souls and/or Elden Ring, I could make many more of these comparisons. 

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. When performance issues or needlessly difficult bosses halt your progress, that's one thing – formal bosses popping up as standard enemies immediately after battles is so underwhelming, for example – but I've always found an element of charm in something like Dark Souls 2 that's not quite a carbon copy of what's come before, and I'm feeling that again in Lords of the Fallen.

Otherworldly

To be fair, I understand that the above is a personal thing. I totally get that being reminded of Dark Souls 2 at launch, how it was derided by some for being inferior to its immediate predecessor, and actually quite liking the fact that it wasn't exactly the same is an abstract stance at best, and a controversial opinion at worst. What I'm also really enjoying about Lords of the Fallen, however, is far more obvious. The game's dimension-hopping is like something pulled from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

For the uninitiated, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a 1999 action-adventure game about vampires with RPG trappings, from the same team behind the original Tomb Raider games, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive. At the time, it was loosely billed as 'Tomb Raider-but-more challenging', and while this was true to an extent, its deft use of dimension-hopping – wherein bosses and puzzles could only be overcome in certain realms, opening up new areas and items in the other – made it so much more. The likes of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, and the Silent Hill series spring to mind as games that use similar mechanics to great effect, but the dark fantasy elements of Soul Reaver have left fans pining for more for decades. 

Lords of the Fallen's use of the Umbral lamp echoes the above. Used to flit between the worlds of the living and dead (Axiom and Umbral), peering into the latter lets you uncover secrets, new enemies, pathways to explore, and a suite of environmental puzzles that let you access new areas in the land of the living. One of my favorite things about this whole process is how Lords of the Fallen lets you enter the Umbral whenever you like, but will only let you return by tracking down specific transportation totems. Like Stranger Things' The Upside Down – or, indeed, Soul Reaver's Demon Realm – it's pretty damn terrifying in there. 

Ultimately, despite Lords of the Fallen's rougher edges, the Soulslike genre is in great health in late-2023, and Hexworks' slant on both the original idea and the overarching signature style of these games has sunk its hooks into me. I'm so infatuated with Elden Ring that I still can't properly distance myself from it, and have returned to both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2 in varying capacities over the last 12 months. Lies of P is a revelation in this space, and while Lords of the Fallen might not hit the same heights, I reckon it's doing enough to earn its place in the conversation. 

To that end, I'll almost certainly have more to say when I've got more hours clocked in its nightmarish world(s). Especially now that there appears to be a faceless shadow man stalking me in the Umbral. Welcome to spooky season, indeed. 

Check out these 10 games like Dark Souls that will push your health bar to the test