Lords of the Fallen Review (2023) In Light we walk

Lords of the Fallen was originally a game released in 2014; the story of this episode is roughly a thousand years later.

The version I am reviewing today is the patched 2025 version: 1.7.106

Edit 2026: There is an enhanced 2.x version these days, better in every way! I might restart this game one day...

A Visual Showcase for Unreal Engine 5

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

Lords of the Fallen is visually stunning! There, it's been said... Okay, it uses Unreal Engine 5, but using Unreal Engine doesn't automatically mean a game will have this level of detail and realism... Lords of the Fallen can easily be compared to the best productions from FromSoftware in terms of visuals — and I mean Elden Ring, of course.

This game is a real showcase of the marvels you can accomplish with Unreal Engine 5! And that's also why there were so many negative reviews at launch, 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 one step closer to photorealism...

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

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

It's true that at the beginning... whatever gaming PC you had, the game could have been more optimized and was crashing quite a lot! But the developers listened to the community, and even now, in early 2025, patches are still being released to address all 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 about a second during a boss fight, where there was heavy use of VFX.

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

My Real Complaint: the Umbral World

No, my complaint won't be about the game's performance, since my computer handled it perfectly...

My con / complaint is 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 build 2 similar worlds, each with its own differences. The Umbral World is the place where you encounter all kinds of undead and revenants, but also where you find shortcuts or paths invisible in the real world — to cross a chasm, for example.

• Well, the issue is... all these alternative paths and shortcuts are ONLY and ALWAYS visible in the Umbral world... There are no shortcuts or paths tied only to the real world. So in the end, I always put myself in "Umbral Mode" right from the start, in order not to miss anything. And also because I didn't want to raise my lamp all the time, just to scan every wall searching for an Umbral passage... That was too tedious! 😤
• And when you play in Umbral mode, first, you're on a timer! The longer you stay in the Umbral world, the more likely you are to encounter more and more undead along the way. So not only do you have to fight the enemies of the real world, but also the undead and revenants... and at some point you'll be in danger and will have to find a campfire as soon as possible. These are called "Vestiges" in Lords of the Fallen, and they reset the Umbral timer.
• And second, in the Umbral world it's even "darker," or more "grey," so you can't fully experience the beauty of the game, since everything looks desolate, corrupted, catacomb-like, and so on...

As you can see, the Umbral world is a ghostly place... so not exactly a sun-bathed atmosphere 😏

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 damn lamp all the time, or having to transition 100% into the Umbral world and play with a sword of Damocles hanging over my head.

A Classic Souls Formula (and a Huge Mournstead)

Apart from that, the game is a solid Souls with everything you'd expect from the genre.

Exploring different places filled with enemies, each with their own patterns — regular fighters in melee, others using ranged weapons like crossbows or bows, but also spellcasting enemies... And when they attack you on platforms where you can fall to your death at any moment, it's even more stressful!!

Anyone used to Dark Souls games will recognize these kinds of fights and areas 😏

Also, if like me you enjoy taking your time, expect a solid 60 hours of gameplay!

Mournstead — 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'll find MANY comments from players on Reddit forums saying they're completely lost! 😆 And it's no joke, because there are so many paths... Some too dangerous to explore right from the start, where you'll have to come back later, and many others leading to great gear to upgrade your avatar — but with more and more dangers along the way!

Fortunately... not only can you save your progress at the "vestiges," but whenever you find flowers on the ground, you can plant a "vestige seed" to create a temporary vestige and save your progress between 2 real ones. And trust me, sometimes the vestiges are very far apart, so these temporary checkpoints will literally save your life! Of course, they're not free — one vestige seed costs you 1,200 vigor (that's the currency).

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

Combat & the Parry That Just Isn't Fun

Like in every other Dark Souls, you'll also be able to buy and sell gear... And there are SO MANY weapons and armor sets in Lords of the Fallen that I don't even know how your avatar manages to carry it all 🤣 Frankly, at some point... you'll have so much stuff on you that you could open your own shop and quit your Dark Souls career 😆

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

Speaking of weapons and fighting styles...

Lords of the Fallen isn't like your typical Souls where you can carry a shield that blocks 100% of the damage, relying on your stamina bar to stop every blow... It's closer to the Sekiro or Lies of P fighting style, where if you land a perfect parry, you break your opponent's posture and open them up for a deadly blow!

There are a few differences in Lords of the Fallen, though...

1. Learning the perfect parry isn't a must-do like in Lies of P, where you have to master it to block the unblockable "Power Attacks"... In LOTF, enemies have no "Power Attacks," so you can always rely on dodging.
2. The parry timing is quite different from your regular Souls... It's a little more "unpredictable"... It's as if enemies are slow to start their attacks, and then, all of a sudden, in half a second, they land the blow! And honestly, even coming from Lies of P, where learning the perfect parry was enjoyable... I didn't find it enjoyable at all in LOTF.

So most of the time I relied on dodging... I never used the shield since it only blocked part of the damage anyway, as was the case in Lies of P. But since the perfect parry wasn't enjoyable to learn, I dropped the shield entirely, went dual-wielding with 2 spears to deal as much damage as possible, and killed enemies as fast as I could —

all of this so I wouldn't have to think about the parry...

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

Bosses: Sinners, Heresies & the Real Enemy (the Camera)

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

In LOTF there are Sinners and Heresies... Sinners are the small bosses, and Heresies the big ones!

The Sinners get reused throughout the game as regular enemies. That means they keep the same size, the same destructive power, and the same abilities... but with a reduced health pool, letting you kill them in a few hits. Which is good, because you don't want a boss battle — even a mini one — happening at every corner.

One of the mini-bosses who later becomes a regular enemy by the end of the game 😏

As for the difficulty... it varies a lot from one boss to another... But overall, the bosses in LOTF are WAY EASIER than the ones you'd find in Lies of P... and most of them only have 1 phase. If we compare to regular Dark Souls, the difficulty would be around Dark Souls 2 level.

You know about phases? It's when you fully deplete a boss's health bar, but then a cutscene plays where it gathers what's left of its power, and off you go for another round! In Lies of P, past the 50% mark of the game, there were only 2-phase bosses... so you had to plan your fight accordingly.

But in LOTF, it's rare to find a 2-phase boss... Their phases are most of the time included within the same health bar — for example, as soon as it drops to 50%, they transition to phase 2.

Some boss fights heavily use VFX and spellcasting abilities... Be careful, these are dangerous!

Actually... it's been pointed out that sometimes the fight isn't with the boss... but with the camera! Some spells or abilities that cause explosions are a real pain when they happen right in front of you, because they literally block your view! Sometimes, blinded by this screen of VFX, you don't even know what's happening behind it! So you decide to dodge — but too soon, because you couldn't see anything — and the boss takes that opportunity to kill you.

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

The Darkest Souls of Them All

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 the same hype, of course, and it's not open world. But the way the levels are designed makes it a semi-open-world. Meaning it looks like one even if it isn't. And also the reuse of bosses as regular enemies, which I've heard is the case in Elden Ring too.

You know... Elden Ring came out in 2022, one year before LOTF, so it's only fair to add the features that work well in other releases. Every studio, at some point, copies what's good on the other side... It's not that the grass is always greener elsewhere, but when ideas work well... 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 love desolation, burned villages, and corrupted cities... basically a whole region gone to chaos, then LOTF is for you! Dark Fantasy in its purest form! Even if you catch a glimpse of hope, there is none to be found in Mournstead — no redemption. You'll do your duty until it's over and you're annihilated in the process... Such is the fate of all Lampbearers, dying one after another, only to be remembered as vestiges of the past.

Desolate environments, burning cities... Welcome home, Lampbearer!

Surely the darkest of the Dark Souls — but I guess, like our morning coffee... we like it dark, don't we? 😈

Sorry, the one on the left isn't me... just a boss in very cool armor 😎 But that's my avatar on the right!

LOTF is a Dark Souls I highly recommend! But after completing it, you'll need something more joyful 😊

+ Visually incredible, one step closer to photorealism!
+ In 2 years, the devs have released several patches 👍
+ Not even an open world, yet still a very long lifespan!
+ Despite the negative reviews, it's one of the best Souls!

- The Umbral lamp mechanic gets very tedious in the long run
- The camera can literally kill you in close fights or intense VFX
- The perfect parry in this game just isn't enjoyable to master...