October 13th 2023.
Lords Of The Fallen - The Most Unnecessary Reboot Ever
Yet another attempt to beat From Software at their own game with an unlikely reboot, Lords of the Fallen is desperate to be Dark Souls 4. Let's start by talking about the absurdity of giving this the exact same name as its predecessor from 2014. The original was known for being the first competent Soulslike that wasn't developed by FromSoftware, but it was so similar in look and feel that it felt largely superfluous - and even more so now that such games are a dime a dozen.
Unlike buying clothing or other off-brand knock-offs, video games don't come with the benefit of being considerably cheaper than the real thing. The most recent Soulslike we reviewed was Lies Of P, and that was less than a month ago. Although it had a steampunk puppet theme that allowed one point of difference with the game it was copying, Lords Of The Fallen has almost nothing to latch onto in terms of personality. The only real difference is that it's just not as good.
The strangest thing about the name is that Lords Of The Fallen 2 was announced almost as soon as the first game came out. After changing developers twice, however, it eventually got cancelled, leading to this reboot. The plot is trying to stop a demon god from being resurrected, but it's rarely brought up. If you've ever played a Soulslike before, you know exactly what to expect from Lords Of The Fallen. The combat, UI, use of stamina and health flasks, bonfire equivalents that allow for fast travel and levelling up, and the fact that you lose in-game currency when you die and then have to collect it when you come back - all these elements are almost exactly the same.
The most distinct difference between Lords Of The Fallen and Dark Souls is the idea of two realities that you can move between, a concept taken from Zelda: A Link To The Past. You pass into the dark world automatically when you die, but you can also travel into it when alive. You have a limited time before an almost unstoppable enemy appears, chasing you out again. The only actually unique idea is the ability to physically rip the souls out of enemies while in the dark world, which is essential for destroying some otherwise unkillable opponents.
The biggest source of frustration is that the game is copy of others, but it's done with a frustrating degree of competence. Nothing is as good as the source material, but this is a professionally made facsimile. The developer, Hexworks, clearly has talent, so why are they wasting it making worse versions of existing games? Even many of the bosses are direct copies of those in other games, with the first proper encounter being a clone of Malenia from Elden Ring.
The game also suffers from serious performance issues, with lots of texture pop-in and the AI frequently going haywire. It's absolutely infuriating to see so much time, money, and effort wasted on such a derivative and unnecessary game. Lords Of The Fallen feels less like a homage to Dark Souls and more like a counterfeit, and its creators should have used their obvious talent to far more constructive effect than this pointless forgery.
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