Lords of the Fallen 2023 in Darkest Light we walk

Lords of the Fallen is originally a game released in 2014, this episode continues the story several centuries later.

The version i am reviewing today is the Patched 2025 version : 1.7.106

LORDS OF THE FALLEN 2023

Since i quit Entropia Universe (and also Clash Royale) back in Mid-February 2025 for obvious reasons, i had a lot of free time ! When you think to it… It's incredible the time you can spend on a Mmorpg or even a Mobile game. I guess whenever there is some human competition involved, it's time consuming and really sinks your life !

So with this life back in my hands, i decided to board the Dark Souls ship !

1. Firstly by completing Demon's Souls with a PC Emulator
2. Secondly by completing Lies of P a Souls made with Unreal Engine 4

But it seems my thirst wasn't quenched yet ! And i remembered that several years ago i had completed Lords of the Fallen, and so of course i was aware that a sequel had been released under Unreal Engine 5 ! As the proud owner of a very nice gaming computer, i was eager to try it out to see if my computer could handle it well 😎👍

Also… I never played to Elden Ring yet, mostly because it's an Open World… And i have an old school view of Dark Souls, where you don't think too much outside of the box. So i guess my 2 next games will be Enotria : The last Song then i was thinking Hellpoint why not, and one of these days… I'll try Elden Ring maybe with the Convergence Mod.

LORDS OF THE FALLEN 2023

First of all, let's speak directly about the artistic direction !

Lords of the Fallen is visually stunning ! Now it is said… Okay it's using Unreal Engine 5, but using unreal engine doesn't mean a game will have that level of details and realism… Lords of the Fallen can easily be compared to the best production of “From Software” in terms of visuals, and i mean Elden Ring of course.

This game is a real showcase of the marvels you can accomplish using Unreal Engine 5 ! And that's also why there have been many negative reviews at the start related to “poor optimization“… But we have to face the truth, the level of detail is astonishing in Lords of the Fallen ! Visually it's so impressive that we're a step closer to photo realism…

So it's only fair to assume that such a level of graphics realism does require some strong hardware !

Lords of the Fallen (2023) will never shy away even from AAA titles like Elden Ring 😎

Then it's true that at the beginning… Whatever the gaming pc you had, the game could be more optimized and was crashing quite a lot ! But the developers have listened to the community, and even now in early 2025 there are still patches released to address all of the players concerns. And i have to say that in 65 hours of gameplay, i experienced only 1 Crash and only 1 Lag Freeze of 1 second during a boss fight, where there was an extensive use of VFX.

So to this day of 2025 you can rest assured that the game is now properly optimized 👍

LORDS OF THE FALLEN 2023

No my complaint won't be about the game performances, as my computer could handle it perfectly…

My Con / Complaint will be about the Umbral World.

You see in Lords of the Fallen, you have the ability to transition between the real and the umbral world. Concretely that means the designers had to design 2 similar worlds but with their respective differences. The Umbral World being the place where you can encounter all kinds of undeads and revenants, but also where you can find shortcuts or ways invisible in the real world, in order to cross a chasm as an example.

• Well the issue is… All of these alternative ways or shortcuts are ONLY and ALWAYS visible in the Umbral world… There are no shortcuts or ways only related to the real world. So in the end, i always put myself in “Umbral Mode” right from the start, in order to not miss anything. And also because i didn't want to raise my lamp all of the time, just to scrutinize every walls searching for an Umbral passage… That was too tedious to do ! 😤
• And when you play in Umbral mode, first you are on a timer ! As the longer you stay in the umbral world, the more you're likely to encounter more and more undeads on your way. So not only will you have to fight the enemies of the real world, but also undeads and revenants… And at some point you will be in Danger, and will have to find a campfire as soon as possible. These are called “Vestiges” in Lords of the Fallen, in order to reset the umbral timer.
• And second, in the Umbral world it's even “Darker” or more “grey”, so you can't experience all of the beauty of the game, as everything will look desolate, corrupted, catacombs style and so on…

As you can see the Umbral world is a ghostly place… So not really a bathed in sun ambiance 😏

So i know they're already working on another sequel… My request would be to find another way to check the Umbral world. I want to experience all the beautiful visuals of the real world, without having to raise that fucking lamp all of the time, or having to transition 100% to the umbral world and playing with a Damocles sword above my head.

LORDS OF THE FALLEN 2023

Apart from that, the game is a regular Souls Game with all of the things you can expect in the genre.

Exploring different places with many enemies having their own patterns, regular fighters fighting at melee, or using ranged weapons like crossbows or bows, but also spellcasting enemies… And when these are attacking you on platforms where you can fall to your death at any moment, it's even more stressing !!

Anyone used to Dark Souls games will recognize these kind of fights or areas  😏

Also if like me you like to take your time, expect a good 60 hours of gameplay !

Mournstead which is the name of the region you're going to explore is Huge !

There are SEVERAL areas, most of them interconnected and sometimes intertwined ! To the point where you can find MANY comments from players on reddit forums, saying they're completely lost ! 😆 Not even a joke, as there will be many paths… Some too dangerous to explore right from the start where you'll have to go back later, and many others leading to very good stuff to upgrade your avatar, but with more and more dangers on the way!

Fortunately… Not only can you save your progress at the “vestiges“, but whenever you find flowers on the ground, you'll be able to plant a “vestige seed” in order to create a temporary vestige, to save your progress between 2 real vestiges. And sometimes trust me the vestiges are very far from one another, so these temporary checkpoints will literally save your life ! Of course these are not free, as one vestige seed will cost you 1200 vigor  (that's the currency)

↓ Click! for a Discount ↓

Lords of the Fallen 2023

Like in every other dark souls you'll also be able to Buy and Sell stuff… And there are SO MANY weapons and armours in Lords of the Fallen, that i don't even know how your avatar is able to carry all of it 🤣 Frankly at some point… You'll have so much stuff on you that it's like you could even open your own shop and stop your dark souls activity 😆

Afraid of heights ? not the right game to play 😏 And the Blacksmith window on your right.

Speaking of weapons and fight styles…

Lords of the Fallen is not like your regular souls game where you can carry a shield blocking 100% of the damage, counting on your stamina bar to stop every blows… It's more surfing on Sekiro or Lies of P fighting style, where if you manage to deliver a perfect parry, you will crush the posture of your opponent allowing a deadly blow!

There are a few differences in Lords of the Fallen though…

1. Learning the perfect parry is not a Must Do like in Lies of P, where you have to master it in order to block the unblockable “Power Attacks”… In LOTF the enemies have no “Power Attacks” so you can always rely on Dodge.
2. The timing to Parry is quite different than your regular Souls Games… It's a little more “unpredictable“… It's like enemies are slow to begin their attacks, and then all of a sudden in half a second, they deliver the blow! And actually, even coming from Lies of P where it was enjoyable to learn the perfect parry… I didn't find that enjoyable at all in LOTF.

So most of the time i relied on the dodge… Never used the shield as anyway it was only blocking a part of the damage, as it was the case in Lies of P… But as the perfect parry was not enjoyable at all to learn, i dropped the shield, went dual wield with 2 spears to do the most possible damage and kill the enemies as fast as i could,

All of this in order to not have to think about the Parry…

Not sure the devs intended to create that kind of reaction in the players… But that was mine.

Lords of the Fallen 2023

Let's talk about the bosses now ! We're in Souls game so it is indeed very important ! 😎

In LOTF there are Sinners and Heresies… Sinners are small bosses and Heresies the Big ones !

The Sinners will be re-used throughout the game as Regular enemies. That means they will have the same size, the same destruction power and same abilities… But a reduced pool of health, allowing you to kill them in a few hits. Fortunately, because you don't want a Boss battle (even a mini-one) happening at every corner.

One of the Mini-Boss who will then become a regular enemy by the end of the game 😏

As for the difficulty… It's very different from one boss to another… But overall, the bosses in LOTF are WAY EASIER than the bosses you could find in Lies of P… And most of these bosses will only have 1 Phase. But if we compare to regular Dark Souls, the difficulty would be like the ones in Dark Souls 2.

You know about the Phases ? It's when you completely remove a full bar of health from the boss, but then there is a cutscene where it manages to gather what remains of its power, and so you're good to go for another round ! In Lies of P, past 50% of the game there were only 2 phases Boss… So you had to plan your fight accordingly.

But in LOTF it's rare to find a 2 Phase Boss… Their phases will most of the time be included in the very same bar of health, like as soon as it's depleted to 50% of the bar, they will transition to Phase 2.

Some Boss fights are heavily using VFX and Spellcasting abilities… Be careful these are dangerous !

Actually… It has been pointed that sometimes the fight is not with the Boss… But with the camera ! Some spells or abilities causing explosions are a pain in the ass when they happen in front of you, as it's literally blocking your view ! Sometimes blinded by this screen of VFX, you don't even know what's going on behind ! So you decide to dodge but too soon because you couldn't see anything, and the boss takes this opportunity to kill you

↓ Click! for a Discount ↓

Lords of the Fallen 2023

You know… this game is so long that at some point i was wondering when it was going to end 😅

But i guess that's why many players compared it to Elden Ring… It doesn't have of course the same Hype, and is not an Open World. But the way the levels are designed make it a semi open-world. Meaning it looks like one even if it's not. And also the re-use of bosses like regular enemies, like i have heard it's the case in Elden Ring.

You know… Elden Ring was released in 2022 one year earlier than LOTF, so it's only fair to add the features which are working good in other releases. All studios at some point copy what's good on the other side… It's not that grass is always greener elsewhere, but when ideas are working good… There's no harm in adding them to the mix.

Size doesn't matter… This Boss is Huge but it's one of the easiest 😉and Spellcasting is useful at range !

If you like Desolation, burned villages and corrupted cities… Basically a whole region gone to Chaos, then LOTF is for you ! Literally Dark Fantasy in its purest form ! Even if you find a glimpse of hope, there is none to be found in Mournstead, there is no redemption. You will do your duty until it's over and gets annihilated in the process… As such is the fate of all lampbearers, dying one after the other, only to be remembered as vestiges of the past.

Desolated environments, burning cities… Welcome home Lampbearer !

Surely the darkest of dark souls, but i guess like our morning coffee… we like it dark aren't we ? 😈

Sorry at the left is not me… Just a Boss in a very cool armor 😎 But that's my avatar on the right !

LOTF is a Dark Soul i highly recommend ! But after completing it you'll need something more joyful 😊

+ Visually Incredible, one step closer to photo realism !
+ In 2 years the devs have released several patches 👍
+ Not even an open world but still very long lifetime !
+ Despite the negative reviews, it's one of the best Souls !

– The Umbral lamp mechanic is very tedious on the long run
– The camera can literally kills you in close fights or intense VFX
– The perfect parry in this game is not enjoyable to master…