Soulslike Lords Of The Fallen’s massive bosses and dual worlds look stunning in newest deep dive

Lords Of The Fallen – previously The Lords Of The Fallen – sits in the no man’s land between sequel and reboot, but either way, publisher CI Games are looking to revamp everything from 2014’s action RPG Soulslike (also confusingly called Lords Of The Fallen). The newest 18-minute deep dive shows off some deliciously devilish bosses, gorgeous dark fantasy environments, and the cool dual-world feature. Take a look below.

That certainly looks better than the middling first game, right? The Soulslike nuts and bolts are still screwed on tight with dodge rolls, overwhelming bosses, build variety, and a heavy emphasis on reading animations. Everything just seems slightly punchier, snappier, and prettier, though we won’t know for sure until we’ve played it. I’m not sure whether to be excited or terrified about that final giant boss, though. Can’t trust creatures with hidden limbs in their mouths.

The thing that calls out to me especially is the interconnected dual-world feature on display. New Lords Of The Fallen takes place across two mirrored realms: the normal-ish Axiom and the significantly gloomier realm, Umbral. Once you die in Axiom, you’re sent to the darker variant for a second chance, although you’ll sometimes need to enter the fantasy Upside Down voluntarily to explore its dark corners. The walkthrough above doesn’t detail exactly how this works – or exactly how different the two realms are – but previous trailers have shown some of the skeleton-ridden environments we can expect.

As with the game’s other showings, the writing on display is so Fromsoftian in its vagueness, it verges on satire. The voiceover above explains that the early-game boss has to be murdered “to restore radiance to the six beacons of sentinels.” Maybe that makes sense within the game’s context; maybe it only makes sense if you’ve read a rusty spoon’s item description. But I think leaning into that haziness could be quite fun.

Lords Of The Fallen was first announced as Lords Of The Fallen 2, with original developers Deck 13 (the studio behind The Surge and Atlas Fallen) at the helm. The sequel then switched hands to another team, before publisher CI Games moved development over to a newly established internal studio, Hexworks. Our Lords Of The Fallen (2014) review was mixed, but I hope this one fares better.

New Lords Of The Fallen comes out on October 13th via Steam and the Epic Games Store.