Lords of the Fallen (2023) PC Review – Better in every way

Nearly ten years ago, Deck 13 gave the world Lords of the Fallen, an Action RPG that tried to copy everything that made Dark Souls such a fantastic game. While it didn’t succeed in that regard, it wasn’t a bad game, but it could have been better. Now, CI Games has decided to change things up, and after the weird development cycle and several years, we’re getting a follow-up to the game, and I had one thing on my mind about that. That being, would this be good? Could this do what the original game did? Well, after playing the game for 30+ hours, I can say this is a better game in many ways.

Game Name: Lords of the Fallen
Platform(s):  PC (reviewed), PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Publisher(s): CI Games
Developer(s): Hexworks
Release Date: 10.13.2023

Catching up after a long time

First, let’s get one thing straight: Lords of the Fallen has been called a reboot of the original Lords of the Fallen from 2014, and that’s just not true. This follow-up takes place 1000 years later, but not much has changed, and the world is still in turmoil; go figure, right? If you played the original game, you’ll hear some familiar names tossed around throughout. Now, if you’re familiar with my reviews, you’ll know I don’t like spoiling story bits, but I did somewhat enjoy the first game, and when I started putting the pieces together, it was nice to see some things were still the same.

However, I do have an issue with how the story is told. Instead of having the story told to you, they are told via characters who have long since passed away, but you can relive their final moments or history via tapping into your Umbral powers, which we’ll talk about more later. If people complained about how Fromsoftware’s Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls told its story, then they won’t be thrilled here, as there’s a real chance you’ll miss out on the story. In fact, some essential story bits are off the beaten path and will require some crafting trekking to find them. Which frankly isn’t the best way to tell a story.

Jumping into the game

When players first start up the game, they’ll find themselves watching a lead-up to the current events and then dumped into a character creation tool. It’s not the best one I’ve seen, but it’s serviceable, and players will have access to tools to make their own in-game avatar. Just don’t expect to go crazy like other games because that’s not happening. After you’re done that, it’s time to select the classes; there’s a number of them, such as from melee-heavy Hallow Knight and Udirangr Warwolf to magic-tossing ones such as the Orian Preacher (Holy) and Pyric Cultist (Pyromancer), as well as several that sit in-between those. Initially, I went with the Pyric Cultist because I like fire, but then I re-rolled as a Partisan, which is a medium armor-wearing class that focuses on melee… that was a mistake, but oh well. There are also several hidden classes that will be revealed after making a specific choice completing the game, and going into New Game Plus, which is an incentive to start the game after completing it. Not counting the Dark Crusader, another melee class that wears heavy armor and does Radiant (holy) magic, which can be unlocked by purchasing the deluxe edition or beating the game. Cheaters!

At the start of the game, players will find themselves getting the lay of the land and making their way to Skyrest, which acts as the game’s hub. This location is also interconnected to several locations, but in order to be able to use that ability, you’re going to need to find some keys, and they aren’t easy to find. I found this to be a pain and wished it was more accessible similar to how Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls did it. There’s also fast travel which is super important to understand how this works.

Lords of the Fallen have what are called Vestiges, but are basically like Bonfires that are spread throughout the world. These will allow you to rest, join/set up multiplayer games, and level up. Yep, this is all traditional stuff. However, there are also portable vestiges that you can deploy by using vestige seeds. These can be found, earned, or purchased, and these seeds will let you set up a vestige wherever you locate a flowerbed. However, there’s a downside to this. If you use a seed in one location but use a seed elsewhere to create a new portable vestige, the prior one will be removed. It’s basically an “I need to save, but I can’t find the main vestige” system. Keep that in mind. Lastly, you can travel to and from any vestiges you’ve engaged.

Let’s talk about the combat

Combat in Lords of the Fallen is traditional Soulsike gameplay, and outside of the stuff I talk about in the next section, nothing is new here. During my playthrough, I had access to a light and heavy melee attack; the latter could be charged to do more damage. There are also ranged attacks, such as arrows, spells, grenades, consumables, and more. The spells are broken down into three classes; Radiant, which is holy and is more defensive; Inferno, which is pyromancy and is explosive and offensive; and Umbral magic, which is all about the darkness. I didn’t use much magic during my playthrough as an offensive means unless I really needed it, and even then, I found it underwhelming and slow early on. If I had put more puts into it, maybe it would be been better.

Yep, you can dodge, though dodging is a bit odd in this game. A single press of the dodge button will move you out of harm’s way, but if you double-tap it, it will take you further, though it uses more stamina. Yes, there’s also stamina, and mana, and health points, and even encumbrance. Again, if you’ve played a Soulslike game before, you’ll be right at home here.

The main meat and potatoes of a Soulslike is the combat, and I have some concerns about that. It’s not bad, but it just feels like it moves back and forth at times, but let me explain what I mean. So, when I first started playing, I picked a melee-heavy character because I mainly use those types of characters in Soulslikes. At first, I played like I did with Dark Souls, sword, and shield in hand, and after a while, I hated it. It felt slow; I was blocking, or trying to parry, or dodging, and repeating the process. It wasn’t fun. But when I changed to wielding a two-hander weapon or when I dual-wielded hammers/axes, the game became a lot faster. I was excited about attacking; it wasn’t just turtling. That’s the important part. If you aren’t enjoying how you’re playing, you’re just going to stop. Anyway, let’s get back to it.

As expected, various weapons will react differently and have a unique moveset; Two-hands are powerful, but slow, single-handed weapons are powerful, but not as strong as two-handers, but you can dual-weild them. Every weapon in the game can also be upgraded, which makes deciding what to use a bit harder. At one point, I was using a two-hander, but eventually, I was able to upgrade my two hammers to be just as powerful as a single two-hander, so I went with those and noticed that they tore through pretty much everything.

There were times when things still didn’t mesh, like when I tried to hit an enemy, and the attack didn’t register. Thus, I have concerns about collision detection, which causes all sorts of problems. I also had an issue with the lock-on that would either not switch despite me clicking off the enemy or randomly just switch off without me moving it. It didn’t always happen, but when it did, it was frustrating. But there are times when the combat just clicked, and I became a Warmachine, running around and killing everything. It just depends on your setup and how you plan on playing. Dodging will take some time to get used to, as it uses a single-press and double-press system. Locked on to an enemy, a single press will cause you to sidestep if you press left or right, or a back step if you hold backward, or close the distance if you hold forward. However, if you double press, it will cause you to roll out of harm’s way, but if you hold forward and double press, sometimes it will take you around the enemy, with the camera whipping around violently. It’s not bad; it’s just awkward at times and unexpected.

Don’t think for a moment that the scream-inducing enemy attacks and you dodge, only for it to follow you and have you toss your controller across the room. Because that’s in there, and it happens way too damned much. You’d think by now that developers would be able to figure out that logic and stop it from happening. Yet, here we are, and it keeps happening. I know this happens with all Soulslikes, but damn it, I’m tired of this happening.

There’s a parry system that ties into the posture system that works better than I initially thought it would. When you lock on to an enemy, you’ll see a small circle, which is the posture of an enemy. If you can get that to zero by doing charge attacks and parrying their attacks, you’ll open the enemy up for a grievous attack, which will leave them open to a damaging attack. I found this to be very enjoyable and tried it as much as I could. It’s also a great way to defeat enemies faster, and you can even spec your character to do more damage while doing this sort of attack. I also recommend you give it a try, as it will help you progress through the game.

Obviously, how I played is going to be different than how you play, but it all revolves around the same thing; does it feel natural? And to that, I’ll say it does, with some caveats. If you’re expecting Fromsoftware goodness, you’re going to be in for some disappointment, as it’s not that good, but it’s not Lords of the Fallen from 2014, either. It’s in the middle, and feel if the Hexworks does some tweaking, it will be even better.

There were times when things still didn’t mesh, like when I tried to hit an enemy, and the attack didn’t register. Thus I have concerns about collision detection, which causes all sorts of problems. I also had an issue with the lock-on that would either not switch despite me clicking off the enemy or randomly just switch off without me moving it. It didn’t always happen, but when it did, it was frustrating. But there are times when the combat just clicked, and I became a Warmachine, running around and killing everything. It just depends on your setup and how you plan on playing. Obviously, how I played is going to be different than how you play, but it all revolves around the same thing; does it feel natural? And to that, I’ll say it does, with some caveats. If you’re expecting Fromsoftware goodness, you’re going to be in for some disappointment, as it’s not that good, but it’s not Lords of the Fallen from 2014, either. It’s in the middle, and feel if the Hexworks does some tweaking, it will be even better.

What is also interesting is while there’s the encumbrance, which causes issues with weight and rolling, it didn’t seem to be as much hassle as in other games. Sure, fat rolling stinks, but I didn’t mind it as much here when I was over the weight limit. I don’t know if this was intended or not. Either way, I ignored this for most of the playthrough, and it didn’t bother me as much as it should have. There’s no way I’d do this in Dark Souls, as the delay from getting up from a fat roll would be disastrous. Not so much here.

New ideas create for some interesting gameplay

As I’ve said in my other Soulslike game reviews, it’s always interesting to see what a developer brings to the table. Does the game rehash something that another game has done, or will it do something that makes you stand up and take notice? In Hexworks position, they definitely have brought more than a few things to the table, so let’s talk about those. First up is the ranged attack / spell-casting system, which is something that I never even knew I wanted until now. Unlike other Soulslikes, where you had to scroll like a mad person while trying to get the spell that you wanted before either a mob, boss, or even a PVP’r does you in, Lords of the Fallen allows you to select up to three spells, arrows, grenades, and various other ranged attacks,  and you can use them just by pressing LR + a button. Since I’m using an Xbox Series controller, I just press the left trigger (Xbox)  +A, X, or Y, and each one will fire off a ranged attack.

The game centers around the use of a lamp, which is also a bit part of the story. It also allows you to peer into the world of the dead, Umbra, and you can use it to travel to this world, either by choosing to use the lamp, called an Umbra Rift, or by death. Dying by any means will send you to Umbra, which is the world of the unseen that sits on top of Axiom (the main world), but things are different. It’s an eerie place that looks like it was plucked out of a horror movie, yet also beautiful at times. It’s also a nice way to cheat death during combat since you’ll get right back up at the point of death — but if you die again, it’s back to the respawn point for you. Using the lamp also means that while you can see the Umbra world, the inhabitants can also see you, and they aren’t all friendly, with some hitting you and even pulling you into Umbra. You also have a few powers that can be used in combat, such as the Soulflay, where you can rip the soul out of anything outside of a boss and attack their soul, amusing you have enough soulflay charges. Or Siphoning, which can recharge your soulflay, and is used quite a bit in a few combat instances, and honestly, was something I wasn’t a fan of. I get it; it’s a cool idea, but I hate when things are forced upon me instead of letting me try things for myself.

Staying in the Umbra world has its advantages, such as story content and more Vigor, which is the game’s current for upgrading and buying items, and it can be used to solve puzzles that you normally couldn’t complete in the live world. For example, at the beginning of the game, there’s a pit you can’t cross while you’re alive. But if you go into the Umbra world, you’ll see that you can create a makeshift platform bridge and take yourself across. There are a lot of puzzles in this game, regular enemies, and boss fights that use this mechanic, so you’ll need to get used to how Umbra works. And yes, sometimes, it does get to be a pain at times.

Umbra might be a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to stay they for too long, trust me. The second you step foot in that world, you send a signal to everyone who lives there. At first, a few weaker enemies will come after you, but after a while, more stronger enemies will come after you. Finally, you’ll go up against a super stronger baddie, who is not only a pain to defeat but also takes away your ability to heal. You’ll know when this happens, as an eyeball will appear on your screen, which is a countdown. Once it turns red, that’s your hint to get out of Umbra as fast as you can. Thankfully, there are ways to pull yourself out of the Umbra world, but they are limited as they are a one-time usage. Of course, if you die, they’ll respawn alongside you.

Finally, there’s a nice take on the health system, which is a take of Bloodborne’s rally system but implemented so much better. Here, if you take damage while blocking since there’s no 100% block or performing a parry, you’ll take what’s called Wither damage. This is when a percentage of your health turns from red to gray but is recoverable at any given time. As long as you don’t take a hit that would introduce actual damage, you can get it back. It won’t slowly disappear, and that’s good. However, if you do take true damage, then it’s all gone. I like the fact that as long as I have Wither damage, I can recover it, and not just by attacking as soon as I get hit.

Multiplayer

What little I played with the multiplayer was a mixed bag. Lords of the Fallen includes all of the trimmings and comes with the option to play with other players as they progress through the game, and they can do the same with you. PVP, aptly called “Slaughter Lampbearer,” lets you track down other players and kill them or invite your friends directly via your Steam list. I can appreciate that LOTF lets you keep playing even after you or the person who summoned you dies, but it wasn’t the best of an experience as my multiplayer adventures were rough, with lots of lag that prevented actions such as changing weapons and I was pulled in every which direction, and my hits didn’t always register on the enemies I hit. As you can imagine, this was very frustrating, and I played offline for the majority of my playthrough.

Not to mention that out of the 30+ times I’ve attempted to join a game, I was disconnected. Now, it could be due to the other player’s connection, but given that I’ve only had the pleasure of a handful of multiplayer experiences, I can’t be sure since I could only play with those who were either reviewing the game or influencers. There’s also a bit of a limitation when it comes to Multiplayer, that being that console players can only play with PC gamers and not other console games. I don’t know why that is, and I’ve reached out to CI Games and Hexworks about this. But for now, if you want to play multiplayer with others, know that this limitation is in place.

When you’re playing in a co-op game, if you are the host, you can revive your partner, and vice versa. If you both die, then you’ll be taken to the Umbral world, and if you die then, then you’ll start back at the last vestige you spawned from. Rounding things out, you’re only able to co-op with one other person and one NPC, which might disappoint some people.

Of course, the PVP is working, as I’ve had a few people interrupt my game and attempt to slaughter me. Too bad for them, that didn’t always happen.  It did note that the one person who did manage to kill me looked to be rocking some higher-level gear. I don’t know if that was the case or not, and it’s too early to know just how the meta works for LOTF’s online slaughter-fest.

Visual and sounds

I can’t speak for the Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5, but on the PC, Lords of the Fallen looks amazing. Both in action or standing still. The art design is stunning, and you can make out everything, from the small details on the weapons and spells, the structures of now ruining buildings, all of it. I’m just in awe looking at it, and it doesn’t hurt that I’m playing with the most powerful GPU on the planet. The characters and NPCs look decent, but I felt they could use a bit more. While the sounds… the sound still have a bit of issue, and still need to be addressed.

However… we gotta talk about the sound effects because they are horrendous, and they need some help. While they have gotten better since the last time I’ve seen the game outside of the review copy I’m playing, that’s not saying much. The overall impact of weapons, the blocking sounds, and even the parrying sounds are very weak. If you compare them to another Soulslike, especially the most recent ones, the comparisons are night and day, or is that day and night? Whatever! The point is they need to be addressed. I need to feel that sword smacking someone’s face or my shield being hammered. When I do a parry, I need to know what it succeeded, and right now, it’s not happening.

PC Performance needs some help

Alright, there is where I tell you that the game ran like a champ, and you’ll have no issues playing Lords of the Fallen on the PC. Or at least, that’s what I wanted to tell you, but I’d be lying if I said that. The truth is that the game runs decently on the PC, but there’s lots of crashing and watching the performance start to slow to a crawl, so I had to restart the game to get the performance back. Enabling Nvidia’s frame generation would also cause crashing at random times, despite being supported.

I’ve played Lords of the Fallen on two different PCs, one with a Ryzen 9 7950X + RTX 4090+64GB of DDR5, the other with a Ryzen 7 7700x + RTX 4090 + 32GB of DDR5. They’re pretty much similar, and so was the performance. With DLSS/DLAA enabled, I was sitting some very high frame rates, but with it disabled, I still managed around 60-70fps.  With those specs, I expected the frame rates to be higher. I’m not going to say that this feels like another game that is *requiring* some sort of upscaler, but the proof is in the pudding. Speaking of upscale, DLSS and DLAA are supported, as is AMD’s FSR 3, but no sign of Intel’s XESS.

There are a varied amount of options for the PC, such as shadows, anti-aliasing, texture quality, post-processing quality, and more. I feel there’s an ample amount of PC options to tweak the visuals. Keyboard remapping is there as well, but you can’t remap controller buttons. There are times when I’ve gone to the menu to change a weapon or change a spell, only to realize that my game had stopped responding, and I had to go back to the keyboard/mouse to make the changes. Alt-tabbing out would greet me with an instant crash, as would taking to certain NPCs. I’ve even experienced crashing during a boss fight, and that, my friends, is super frustrating.

 

Though, it’s not all completely bad,  I was able to get a decent experience with high frame rates and no sound glitches, and it has me smiling from ear to ear. Sadly, Unreal Engine 5 hasn’t had the best success when it comes to PC games, and Lords of the Fallen is yet game that is suffering due to its implementation. A new update was released a day ago, so now I’m going through and testing all the stuff that caused me some pain to see if they were addressed or fixed.

**Update** A patch was released on 10/11/2023 that did address some of the performance issues. While I no longer crash, I do see some momentarily hitching, like when I go into the menu. It just pauses for a few seconds every time I go back to the menu, and that wasn’t something I’d experienced before this new patch. It could be specific to my PCs, but I find that very odd.

**Update** As of November 2023, the performance of Lords of the Fallen is getting worse/hasn’t gotten better, and as such, I’m getting frustrated. If you’re looking to get this on either the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, I’d be cautious.

Frustration points

Yet, for everything that amazes me in this game, there are some design choices that boggle my mind. A good example is when you kill an enemy, and they drop their loot and their vigor. I get that you have to pick up the loot, but the vigor, your experience points, and currency also sit in place. Unless you’re really close, like next to it, you won’t get it. Initially, I missed out on a lot of my experience points because I figured it would eventually make its way to me, but it didn’t, or I killed an enemy that was standing on a roof or some other unreachable area. That really stinks to me, and I hope that gets addressed because that’s frustrating.

One specific boss, who I won’t name, was a problem as you couldn’t see his entire body since he was so massive. However, that also meant that you didn’t know which attack he was about to do, which resulted in me getting hit when it could have been avoidable. I addressed that frustration to CI Games, which looks to be addressed. I won’t know as I’m past that part, and I really don’t want to start a new game yet to find out. While some fights, boss and regular, are a bit overturned, as swarms of enemies will overrun you. Not impossible, but more frustrating than I felt it should be. Then there’s the issue of collision detection, which was very apparent, especially in boss fights. I’d hit slam my weapons as hard as I could, only to watch several swings miss completely. Which isn’t helpful when I’m down to my last point of health, and I’m trying to get this boss out of my way.

These frustration points are all serviceable, and while they are upsetting, they don’t break the game. I just wanted players to know about these before picking up the game.

What I thought about Lords of the Fallen

Honestly, after 50+ hours of the game, which includes re-rolling several times, I found myself enjoying the game. While it does have some sore points, this does build on what Fromsoftware’s Soulslike titles and sits alongside Dark Souls 3. I enjoyed most of the boss fights, and I thought the combat was fun and fast-paced, though clunky at times. The world is massive, the locations I traveled through were pretty cool, even if I hated a few of them, as they took cues from the worst of Fromsoftware titles. But the new mechanics, such as the lamp and how it interacts with the world, are damned cool and require a bit of thought on your part; its risk vs reward system is something I haven’t experienced in a game before. There’s a lot to like here.

Then there are the additional characters you can get, which adds to the longevity of the game. If you want those extra characters, another playthrough is going to be needed. Not to mention there are a lot of items and other things hidden throughout the game, and if you’re a completionist, you’re going to want to find them all. So, get ready to spend some extra time with the game.

Lords of the Fallen is a decent title for those who’ve played all the Dark Souls and have been waiting for more, despite the series likely being over. I wish the performance on the PC was a bit better, and I’m hoping that this gets addressed sooner than later. Regardless, if you’ve played all of the Soulslikes out there and you’re looking for something else, Lords of the Fallen won’t disappoint. I just wish it was a bit more polished.

Now, if you excuse me, I’m diving back in to give Lords of the Fallen another playthrough.

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