Since Lords of the Fallen was released for the Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, the game developer Hexworks has been pumping out updates and correcting bugs and technical performance issues across all the platforms. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve given up on tracking the updates, as they have gotten to the point where they have started releasing multiple updates, sometimes on the same day.
But recently, Hexworks and CI Games have reverted, perhaps the biggest issue with the game since it was released. For those not in the know, when you start a new game plus adventure, you’d lose the vestiges, which are the savepoints. Outside of the vestiges located in Skyrest, the game’s hub, the rest were removed. Due to this, you’d have to rely on the temporary vestiges that you can deploy by using the vestige seeds. This, of course, ruins the experience for many and kills exploration for all but the most hardcore players.
This wasn’t a popular decision among the community, with many players stating they had no plans to do a new game plus playthrough. Thankfully, this change has been reverted, and Hexworks has revealed how Lords of the Fallen’s new game plus mode will work going forward in a recent update, patch v.1.1.224, which is already available for the PC and in another upcoming update, which Hexwork’s stated would be releasing later this week.
When you complete your initial playthrough, you will be presented with a new option before embarking on your next run-through; you can either progress directly to the next consecutive New game playthrough, or you can replay the current new game at the same difficulty, albeit retaining your character, items, and progression, but resetting the entire world, including NPCs and questlines. This will allow trophy hunters and completionists to seek out any outstanding tasks without having to contend with increased difficulty, should they choose.
A further patch this coming later will see further updates made to the New Game Plus mode instead of removing all vestiges as it does currently. New Game Plus 1, will only see a few disappear while keeping the key locations intact. In New Game Plus 2, a few more will disappear, and then in New Game Plus 3, all but the main vestigage at Skyrest Bridge and Adyr’s Shrine vestige will disappear. This way, Hexwork’s initial vision remains intact but is more of a gradual adaptation, awaiting those who seek increasing levels of challenge.
Lastly, as a follow-up to the popular announcement made during a recent stream, Hexworks confirmed they have started designing the “New Game Plus modifier system,” allowing players to fully customize their New Game Plus experience, whether that’s retaining all vestiges, keeping just a few, or removing them completely. It will also include other fun modifiers like a “hardcore” mode, item randomizers, enemy randomizers, etc. The feature set is yet to be fully defined, but Hexwork intends to release the modifier system before the end of this year.
That’s not all, as the developer has also addressed the enemy density, which has been a complaint with Lords of the Fallen. Starting in this recent update, which, again, is available for the PC, they have addressed this. Now, instead of having massive amounts of enemies following the players through a level, there will be fewer as enemies won’t follow players as far. They will tweak crowd behaviors so enemies will not swarm players as often; multiple enemies will no longer land hits, while enemies will be a little less aggressive when swarming the player in greater numbers. This will be further tweaked in the next upcoming update.
As you can see, Hexworks still has a lot planned for Lords of the Fallen and will continue to pump out updates and listen to the members of the community to make this game one of the better Soulslike titles out there.
