Lords of the Fallen’s 2023 reboot—which I’ll call Lords of the Fallen from now on for brevity’s sake—is a big, heartfelt attempt to reinvent a franchise which came under heavy fire in 2014 for being one of the first Souls-like derivatives. Truth be told, Hexworks has done a damn fine job. But although it’s with a heavy heart that I have to admit it, I haven’t (Lords of the) fallen in love.
I like Lords of the Fallen. Quite a bit, actually. It might be one of the best non-FromSoftware Souls games we’ve gotten so far. It oozes creativity, its bosses are inventive and cool to look at, it has a huge host of weapons and spells to muck around with, and the Umbral Lamp—which lets you hop between the land of the dead and the land of the living—adds a ton to the setting and the moment-to-moment exploration. I can’t ignore some glaring design thorns in Lords of the Fallen’s rose.
The Umbral Lamp is great.—Axiom and Umbral. If you die in Axiom, you go to Umbral, if you die in Umbral, you’re dead proper. But it’s more than a second chance with a blue filter.
