Lords of the Fallen In-depth Preview | Gameplay, Lore & Developer Interview [Hands-On]

there was a moment when I realized that Lords of the Fallen was something special I was exploring a tomb and I noticed an item on the other side of some iron bars without any normal route to get there and so I suspected that the answer lay in Lords of the fallen's second world and so I raised my umbral Lantern to peer into this second world into the Netherworld of Lords of the fallen and lo and behold in the umbral realm there were no bars keeping my Lantern Aloft I was able to pass through where the bars had once been as the glow of the lantern connected me to that darker realm I picked up the item and so I turned around and made to leave to pass back through the iron bars but what I saw caught me by surprise there was a horde of shambling zombies twitching towards me through the umbral realm so instinctively I lowered the lamp severed the connection to this other world and I was safe once more and yet as it always does curiosity got the better of me and I raised the lantern once more but when I peered into the other realm they were waiting for me in the time that I'd lowered my Lantern unseen in the loving world yet now with the lantern raised I was vulnerable and with one swift attack they dragged me fully into umbral unprepared and caught off guard what Falls was a panic flight back to the last checkpoint so I could return to the land of the living before the horrifying denizens of umbral picked me off this is the core of the Lords of the fallen's exploration experience a deep and unique system which gives the game a strong hook and identity so hi guys it's small town here and today we are doing a Hands-On preview for the upcoming action RPG Lords of the Fallen I was lucky enough to be invited to a Hands-On preview session in London earlier this month at this event I got to play about two and a half hours of the game but I was also lucky enough to interview chazar vertuzo who is The Game's creative director and he gave me some really juicy insights regarding the lore that you probably won't hear anywhere else a well drip feed quotes from this interview throughout where it is relevant however it was mainly about the lore and story and so it'll be mainly focused in the final section of this video that will be about story buywell also posts the full text transcript of this interview on my patreon for free and that will be linked below so in this video I will not only be giving you my Impressions and what I experienced in the game but you can expect some insights from the devs themselves regarding the lore and objectives of the game at the onset of this video it behooves me to tell you that this video and my trip to London were sponsored however I have been given no limitations on how I can cover this and what subjects I can talk about and so I will be giving my true unadulterated impressions of the game and I ultimately up to you to make up your mind about the gameplay features and story that I tell you about with all that said let us begin with a general overview of the game and how it engages with its 2014 predecessor Lords of the Fallen Lords of the Fallen as an action RPG with a stamina-based combat system a Soul's Lake for a lack of a better word this game has all the bells and whistles of a game of that type multiple weapons brittle combat stamina bars bosses deep lore environmental details and a semi-open world structure you are a dark Crusader a Revenant who is able to exist in both the world of the loving and in the world of the Dead thanks to a dark artifact the umbral lantern wielding the power of the umbral realm you embark on a quest to defeat the Demonic Legions of adir the Fallen God who dominated this world before he was overthrown a thousand years ago only his hand punching through the crust of the earth reminds us of his influence as the influence of a deer has seeped into the lands a deer's Wards have now failed and his corruption has sprayed and thus most of the enemies you face in game are either corrupted beings or the Demonic Legions of a deer the rogar the greatest among these rogar known as the Lords of the Fallen there will be choices there will be different endings and there will be many bosses to overcome and there will be bizarre NPCs to talk to at the top of this video I will tell you right now that the game's strongest points are in its level design art Direction atmosphere and unique exploration options given by the two World System I think you'll see even from the footage alone that the atmosphere and art direction are all top-notch here presenting a dark and gritty world full of Twisted enemies mysterious NPCs and grotesque bosses as a reboot of the game of the same name from 2014 and that was a game that myself and many others readily consumed back in 2014 DLC and all because it was one of those very first games to replicate that souls-like formula that we all know and love but even as the developers acknowledged during their presentation to attendees at the time that game from 2014 really was a product of its time and thus age has not been that kind to Lords of the Fallen from 2014 remembered for its slow clunky combat and very linear style despite the lore and the world that was built in this game showing a lot of Promise the more expansive world and traditional RPG elements in this new game is something that sets it apart from that original 2014 game which was really closer to an action game with some stripped back RPG elements a set protagonist and a linear path so there has been a lot of discussion about this new Lords of the Fallen whether it's a sequel a soft or a hard reset and I can confirm what the reality is after finding some in-game lore and having discussed it with Cesar as a hard reset in terms of gameplay Vision Direction and themes but it is a soft reset in terms of lore 1 000 years have passed since the events of the first game and so the world is far different and a darker place it is a new canvas for the developers to make something new but it does happen within the same universe the lore of the first game is Canon and I'll discuss it more thoroughly in the lore section but I did find even in this early part of the game bits of lore that tie it back to that first game and to be honest I was hoping that this was the route they would take too long has passed to make it a direct sequel but many of us still remember and so it's nice they are honoring the lore but also taking the IP in a new fresher Direction so in the presentation that they gave to attendees before we played the game the team were upfront about the game's 2014 Heritage and how this new game deviated from the original version where the first game was a high Fantasy game this new game is Dark Fantasy where the first game was linear this game is semi-linear and where the first game had a set character and very limited RPG elements this new game has full character creation a robust class system an RPG mechanics Additionally the team told us the basics about the multiplayer and Co-op that it will be 100 seamless Co-op meaning that you can play start to finish with your mates no re-summoning and summoning before bosses and this is of course a massive win I cannot wait to the full Co-op of this type of game however we weren't able to test this ourselves so I'm only going off what the developers told us finally the team wanted to move away from the slower and heavier combat of the original to deliver something more fluid Dynamic and varied as I've said it is this radical departure in tone mechanics and presentation that warrants the reboot title rather than really any story considerations Lords of the Fallen does deliver on this evolution of the game series as I've said the original game was very much a linear experience both in Exploration and RPG in this reboot the Character Creator and class system is as robust as we've come to expect from this sub-genre with distinct and cool classes to start with but also full control over stats and attributes as you'd expect you to level up by collecting a currency from Fallen enemies and then you level up by racing at your checkpoint and in this case this is called vestiges which look like big corpses that hold the lamps though you can also Forge your own checkpoints known as forged vestiges but we will look at that in the gameplay section the combat definitely has more to it than the original having stagger Parry mechanics and three full schools of sorceries that you can get involved in and the game definitely lives up to its semi-linear promise you initially have a linear tutorial area known as the red cops Village but after that you arrive at the mausoleum your Hub area and from here there are a number of winding paths to choose from when making your journey into modern State very much like your Firelink Shrine or majilla as for the developers promise to transform this from a high Fantasy game to a dark Fantasy game yeah they definitely achieve that this is a darker bloodier world where every armor set is rent every robe is bloodstained and it is dominated by religions and organizations who deal in the flagellation and sacrifice of their faithful one of the moments that this became very clear to me was when I arrived at the Hub area and I spoke to an NPC who was part of the hallowed Sentinels a glorious order of knives and yet here he is standing in a blood and sweat stained uniform with rent armor this is a world of bloody Relentless combat with very little respite for those who still live here this is without even speaking of the umbral realm the realm of the Dead where you will spend a lot of time in it is oppressive unsettling and the devs have done a great job in making your time feel very unpleasant here with that said let us now discuss the two World system and why it is so good and game's greatest strength so in essence there are two maps layered on top of each other Axiom the world of the living and umbral the realm of the Dead Axiom is the basic map that you'd expect in any of your classic action RPGs an interconnected world full of enemies where you're given respite by vestiges this game's version of bonfires which you can teleport between freely even from the beginning of the game the umbrella realm offers you new ways to Traverse the same physical space Bridges and platforms and ladders that may not appear in the living world for example or barriers that may not exist at all in the real world like if the example I gave in the opening anecdote to this video while holding the lantern you can take advantage of these new Pathways so long as it only requires you to walk if there's no interaction and you can just walk across a new bridge for example feel free to just hold your Lantern to walk across and then put it down when you're made it to the other side however there are puzzles in the humble realm that require you to interact and if this is the case then you will need to fully transfer into the umbral realm and you can do this at any time by essentially giving up one of your lives you kill your living body and appear in umbral the umbral system also acts as a sort of second life system quite like secure if you die in the world of the living then you will rise again in the umbral world but if you die again in the umbral world then that is it and you will wake up at your Last Vestige this is a very unique system and it will offer unique gameplay opportunities and moments for example if you die in a really bad situation and you get up again you might be like oh great I have a second life however you are now surrounded by the creatures of the umbral realm and the enemies that killed you in the first place so while it does give a second life like sekiro it doesn't come without consequences on like insecuro however as I've said you might need to fully transition into the umbral realm as there's platforming and puzzles to sometimes Traverse these big spaces that you can't do in the Axiom world in the world of the living the extra attention is of course added that while you're trying to solve these puzzles you are acutely aware that you've already given up your first life there's only one chance to solve all these puzzles a lot of the time these puzzles require you to activate and move platforms towards you using the lantern something you can't do if you're still in the world of the living however there are some other unique moments where you do need to fully transform into the umbral realm and there's an example I can give there is a village at the beginning of the game the one I've mentioned red cops Village and there seems to be no way forward and you move to a slight lake or pond at the side of the village if you raise your umbral Lantern at this point you realize that the pool of water actually in the umbral realm is not there and instead there is a trench that you can walk through to make it to some ladders I tried going through this just by holding up my Lantern but unfortunately the glow of the umbral lamp only reached so far so I eventually got so deep into the trench that the real water above the pocket that the lamp had created with its light bore down on me and drowned me however I did drown and die until when I woke up in the umbral realm I was on the trench anyway and I just am really excited to see how the umbral realm will interact with Axiom in all these different ways as you can see that even in these two and a half hours and the very beginning of the game I have a number of cool interactions to share with you when you spend a long time in the humble realm you will realize that it is actually pretty horrifying and you want to get out of it quite quickly at the top of the screen at the right there is a big eye when you're in the umbral realm and this has a meter around it this meter signifies how seen you are in The umbral Realm by the denizens that live there and as it ticks up with a very ominous ticking noise the more you're going to be swarmed by the husk type enemies and I do wonder if there are some unique umbral enemies that are bigger than these guys that you'll find if you have extended periods here unfortunately I wasn't able to test that but it certainly ramps up the pressure when you're already having to deal with the enemies you usually would in the Axiom realm and then you have these husk enemies constantly swarming you and the meter constantly ticking up on the flip side this is meant to be a risk reward system as a multiplier starts also going up the longer you are in umbral meaning you'll get more Vigor I.E Souls from each enemy that you kill the incessant ticking of the eye meter the gross organic sounds of the environment and the con constant harassment by new enemies makes it a very stressful place to be and I was always racing to escape this tormented and dangerous Realm you can do so by dying of course which isn't ideal or by resting at a Vestige or by finding specific totems that you quite often see after platforming sessions which actually bring you straight back into Axiom without having to rest this really was the strongest point of the game for me the exploration aspect of the game each area gains a new layer of depth by studying each part of the environment every nook and cranny with your lamp you will discover new areas and secrets and honestly it's just a load of fun Cesar did imply that there are some massive secrets to be found in the umbral realm and I won't give you the explicit details of what he told me but put it this way there are not just items to be found in the umbral realm additionally your umbral Lantern does have other uses mainly the soul flare which is a type of combat technique where you can essentially lock onto an enemy and pull their soul out where you deal heavy damage to their soul while they are effectively defenseless there's also the soul siphon which is where you siphon off things known as umbral parasites umbral parasites or things that appear in the umbral realm that attach themselves to certain enemies or bosses that give them a boost for example there is a mini boss called The Scourge sister who had a umbral parasite that made her invulnerable until I either dealt with the parasite or I drew her away from its influence and the final boss of the demo the congregator had a parasite attached to it which gave it poison attacks and if I siphoned off this umbral parasite it would disable its poison attacks for a bit of time so it's at risk reward gameplay do I want to risk trying to siphon off a parasite during this massive boss fight or do I just try not to get hit at all these are the decisions that the lantern can give you bear in mind this is all information I gained from only two hours with the game essentially and so who knows how far these systems can really go and with that said with the umbrella system and Lantern explained let us go through the gameplay and why I actually experienced when I played the game foreign [Music] aside as we start this chapter the developers were quite upfront that this build would contain certain bugs that they were aware of them and they were actively polishing them that being said I didn't actually come across too many bugs in my time just one or two so that facet of the game does seem promising and overall the performance of the game was very stable so yeah I've got good hopes for the performance side of things Lords of the Fallen starts as you would expect there is an epic cinematic that sets the stage for the state of the world a world ravaged by demonic hordes and corrupted factions and through a complete chance encounter the umbral lamp comes into your possession and you become the next dark Crusader and at that point you are given over to the character customization screen where you choose your customization and your class now I didn't get to play around with the customization too much but again it's looking great and I like the really flavorful starting classes which lord of the Fallen delivers there are 10 different classes like the peric cultists the udringer warwolf and the hallowed Nate IGN actually has a good article breaking down each of the classes which I will link below and some of the classes seem to have some really good flavor for each of the classes the developers gave IGN a sort of commentary on each class and for example the developer said the following on the peric cultist with their masks made from human skin these pyromancers are the anti-preachers so to speak human cultists yearning for a deer's return spreading its pestilent teachings in the human communities and emulating the opposition aside from being agents of chaos and destruction they also Revel in blood lighting collecting hands and using them as catalysts this is a very Lords of the Fallen kind of class embracing the unfettered power that the rogar wield is very satisfying and dabbing yeah not gonna lie that's a pretty cool bet of lore and I will definitely need to try this class in the future however I went with the hallowed Knight as I'm always more inclined to go with a balanced sword and board type Warrior for my first playthrough of these types of games after you create your character in your class you are dropped into a small linear tutorial area where you learn your basic combos blocking parrying sprinting jumping and how to use your umbral Lantern to navigate and Traverse the world you then fight a mini boss followed up by the tutorials final boss a roggar lord on a Three-Headed Beast and yeah it's time to die you really have no chance to win here you barely do any damage and once you die a cinematic plays you resurrect and it's time to carry on to the first real area the red cops Village this Village is a great Wii area that reinforces the fundamentals of the games it's a well-designed area that's pretty small that has some good verticality and some hidden items in this area you will face multiple enemies while Sorcerers fire spells from above forcing you to master the basics of the combat system and controlling a multiple enemy fate prioritizing whatever you think is best whether you go after the ranged Sorcerers first whether you take them down with ranged or whether you just dodge their spells while taking out the melee enemies in this Village there's also a sort of powerful Elite who is armed with a claymore and fire spells and this is a good chance to practice the Stagger and Parry mechanics of the game for me the Steiger and pirate elements are the best part of the combat and other attendees agreed every enemy has a stagger meter that is visible when you lock onto an enemy there is a DOT that appears on the enemy to signify that you are locked on and around that dot there is a sort of yellow meter and that is the Stagger meter I think this is a very clean way of doing this integrating it into the lock on so to speak so it doesn't clutter up the screen when there are multiple enemies on the screen any attack is actually able to damage the Stagger meter it's just that heavy attacks kicks and parries do far more damage to the Steiger meter then when the Stagger meter is fully depleted it will not automatically stagger the enemy to do that you need to give them a fully charged heavy attack a kick or Parry them once more this will then Flash the Stagger meter red signifying the fact they are open to a visceral attack let's take a moment now to talk about the general feel of combat it is certainly a marked improvement from the first game as I said myself and other attendees really enjoyed the Parry system which works more like sekiro's deflect system rather than a Dark Souls Parry system so you basically tap block as the enemy goes to attack you and each time you do so successfully it does some stagger damage rather than it being an instant open for a visceral attack this means that during certain flurry attacks from bosses you can continually time a deflect and do tons of stagger damage so when you learn certain bosses this becomes a very strong technique The Village also gives you the chance to practice a backstab which again is closer to bloodborne rather than Dark Souls while you're behind an enemy do a Charged heavy attack and you will be rewarded with large stagger damage resulting in an instant visceral attack opening as I mentioned there is a kick which is easy to use it's just RB and lb or R1 and L1 this does large stagger damage and of course can be used to kick enemies off the edge and this is very useful in one of the early areas Pilgrim's perch which is essentially a shanty town attached to the side of a cliff I didn't play around with the ranged or sorcery much but I do really like the way it is integrated rather than it being a weapon that takes up a full slot there's just an assigned keybind for range options in my case it was holding left trigger to aim and right trigger to throw as pointed out by Dom's Roundtable in a video breaking down the gameplay reveal from a couple of weeks ago there are some keybinds which were displayed here and having played the game now I can tell you that these spell keybinds will be activated by holding lift trigger and then pressing the appropriate bind while you're aiming so again I think this is a smart choice to have magic integrated separately from your base weapon slot I overall had a good time with the combat I was mainly a melee build and it's hard for me to describe exactly how it feels another attendee I spoke to afterwards said they felt like it was something between Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 a little bit of float but still some impact when you swung your weapons there is definitely something to that for me the swing of the weapon is very deliberate and slow but also the movement is a little bit fast and floaty when you're rolling around the closest equivalent for me is Mortal shell so if you've ever played that and you know the fully weighty combat that's in that game that for me is how it felt so your character movements feel fast and floaty but the swing of your weapons are very heavy deliberate but if you liked mortal shell then you are in for a really good time and overall I find myself enjoying the systems that were in the game the procession of the Parry system in tandem with the Stagger system really goes a long way to carry this game's combat also bear in mind that this was still an early build of the game and so there's still some Polish to go on and it might be quite different by the time you finally play it but yeah overall very solid combat systems that help hold the game up returning to my playthrough once you'd worked your way through the red cops Village and made it to the top you pass through the umbral Pond puzzle that I spoke about earlier where you transform into the umbral realm you pass through a trench and you find your first chance to build a forged Vestige these forged vestiges operate the same way as a normal Vestige bar an opportunity to create an optional checkpoint in an area that is useful to you to create one all you need is a Vestige seed and to locate an umbral seed bed by using your Lantern however in this case the force Vestige is more like a tutorial as it is very necessary because just ahead up on the bridge is our first true boss pieta pieta the hallowed Knight is the boss that was shown in the 17-minute gameplay reveal she is the boss who is a knight with a sort of laser sword and has a winged second stage the first stage is what you'd expect from a heavily armored Knight with a big sword and it plays really well with pieta having slow well telegraphed swings that are good opportunities for parries or just for dodges but her second phase is where everything is kind of mixed up a little bit it brings her further mobility and some pretty dramatic albeit not too challenging zoning attacks including one move where she creates two copies of herself that charge forward in a straight line leaving behind a damage over time effect on the ground of their flight path restricting the space that you can fight the tropieta in if you don't want to take that damage I really enjoyed this fight and it's what I want for my first boss a bit of a challenge some variety and overall just a boss that forces you to understand the fundamentals of the game dodging parrying and attacking she is also very much staggerable and this is how I ultimately beat her with pieta defeated we were able to make our way to the hub area of the game Sanctuary Mausoleum a mausoleum worthy dark Crusader and his allies gather upgrades can happen here and you can talk to plenty of NPCs it seems like a really multi-layered area that I didn't have time to fully explore there are definitely some secrets to be found here but it's a good place to catch your breath before moving on to the rest of the game leaving Sanctuary I find myself in a small Cliffside area with a number of cranes it's a sort of crane Port indicating that perhaps this was once a location of some sort of industry and as I learned with my interview with Cesar the creative director indeed there was a mine in mornstead so these are leftover remnants from that mine once I cleared this area that brought me to the tomb that I spoke about in my opening anecdote and it's a great area to explore a lot of vertical space and little secrets hidden around nooks and crannies indeed by using the umbral lamp and moving into the Umble realm I was able to find an item that allowed me to return to the hub and upgrade my healing capacity again healing works as you'd expect you have an item that has limited uses but replenishes when you rest so finding this item that gave me another charge was a great find so I do highly recommend that as you're going through every area make sure to bring out your umbral lamp now and again coming to the bottom level of this tomb brought me to probably my favorite part of the entire demo where I fought a mini boss called The Scourge sister this boss is clearly a religious sellot who wears a metal penitence Helm and who is flagellating herself with her maze the visual design alone of this boss was enough to get me excited I got some real blast from his Vibes here but the boss fight itself is really mechanically well done as well this is just a humanoid enemy that has really well telegraphed attacks that you can Parry or Dodge but also there's an added little mix up here there's an umbral parasite attached to the scourge sister when you first enter she and the two Mages that accompany her are essentially Invincible until you siphon away this umbral parasite or you can do a different technique which is what I did I actually argued her and got her to walk further away from her umbral parasite to the point where she was rendered vulnerable without me having to dodge around while trying to siphon off the parasite and then the fight itself is really well done like I've said she has a second stage where she starts using Orion prayers meaning that she has some AOE attacks and an enhanced move set the whole thing just feels really fair and is the type of souls-like fight that I really enjoy a humanoid enemy with good movesets and best of all I got her penitent Helm after beating her so I was wearing that pointy boy for the rest of the demo after this you moved to a Cliffside area something that was shown off in the 17 minutes gameplay reveal again Pilgrim's perch and think of this as essentially Blight Town without the blight a wooden shanty town that is built into the side of a cliff this has got a little bit of platforming and some good enemies and what's interesting is this is when you really get into the Umbra realm part of the game you are required to fully transfer into the umbral realm so you can do some of the puzzles and platforming and it does feel like this is the dev's way of introducing you to the more in-depth way the umbral can play but the platforming can be quite extended and it did take quite a while for me to work out all the puzzles here avoid all the enemies whilst navigating the umbral platforming and it did take me some time to make my way up the side of this cliff once this area was cleared we finally came face to face with the final boss of the demo who unfortunately I just simply wasn't able to beat with the time given to me this is a giant monster called the congregator and it's just a massive bass like enemy with poison attacks again it didn't feel too unfair at all I was able to space around it and it had slow telegraphed attacks it's just that I didn't have the stats or Weaponry to really take it down so I imagine when fighting this boss with upgraded weapons and an appropriate level it won't be too difficult to take down and again as a nice introduction to a bigger Beast like enemy and that was really the end of my experience with Lords of the Fallen so I'm now going to go into some more depth about the lore so this is your spoiler warning for more in-depth examination of the story as we will be discussing not only my own observations of what I saw in the game but also some very revealing comments made by The Game's creative director who told me so much about the story in our interview including greater lore points and even hints towards the certain endings that you could get in this game so for those who don't want any story spoilers there's going to be a time stamp on the screen now and you can jump to that if you just want to hear my concluding thoughts at the end of the video for those still here let's get into the war let's come to the basics first of all adir is the quote unquote bad guy the Demonic God who is represented by the big hand that is now reaching out of the Earth this is apparently All That Remains of this great entity who is sealed away Melania ago a deer is now trying to reassert his control over this world and his demonic rhaegar forces have invaded the lands and the location for this game the lands you're in the Kingdom you're in is called mornstead and talking about giant hands a really cool detail that chazar let me in on is that because a deer is represented by this giant hand people that follow him his cultists use actual human hands as their catalysts there is another God the enemy of a deer called Aureus the God of Light and this is the deity that the Orion church worships the church responsible for the dark Crusaders the other main force and the game is called the hallowed Knights now the hallowed Knights serve one of the judges the judge cleric and the judges are great human Heroes who were responsible for sealing away a deer all those Melania a gold but this was also a lower point in the original game the judge cleric judge Warrior and judge Rogue were all plot points in the original game so it's good to see this being well integrated into the new game as I mentioned before despite the game being a reboot it does incorporate the lore of Prior games and this was something I actually discovered for myself as well before I even had my interview with the creative director and the Hub and the mausoleum there is an NPC who claims to be the descendant of the great antanas a hero of Royal Blood who stopped a deer's return years ago but was murdered by a common criminal that's the story the NPC tells us anyway now I will show a quote from Cesar on screen now but players of the first game will already recognize that this is a worth retelling of the ending of that original game Harkon the player character from the first game was a common criminal and antanis was a leader of Royal Blood descended from one of the three judges but Harkon was forced to kill him after Antonis became obsessed with becoming a God himself he began playing around with mutation science and eventually injected himself turning himself into a grotesque being a monster known as the judge a perverted reimagining of those original judges from a Conquest so in fact harcon was the true hero of the first game and yet history Now does not remember him fondly so this is the same universe with the original adir the judges the rulegar but so much time has passed one thousand years to be exact but the team can effectively move on in their own Direction while simultaneously paying homage to the original lore the original game mainly took place in Keystone Monastery and when I mentioned that I had picked up on this NPC dialogue that I've just discussed that obliquely referenced antanis and harcon chesar said the following of the original lore you will discover that all the threads lead to Keystone Monastery and the consequences of Harkin's actions I'm glad we're going to see more lore on the judges in the original game they were just kind of mysterious mythological characters but Chase are confirmed to me that the cleric judge is indeed in the game and is the one shown in the trailer and the opening cinematic the female figure that with her hallowed Sentinels creates the awards that keeps a deer imprisoned Cesar does say that we well eventually meet her in-game and it appears that her and her hallowed Sentinels have long been corrupted indeed pieta the first boss that we Face the one with the wings is herself a corrupted hallowed Sentinel who after being defeated is freed from her corruption and now AIDS us as a useful NPC in the sanctuary she can upgrade our healing equipment for example as the trailer shows and the Cinematic to the game these Wards these white lights that kept a deer down created by the judge clerk have been corrupted and turned red we see a women instigating some kind of ritual which turns them red unleashing a deer's influence upon the land and initially a request that is given to us is that we are to cleanse these Wards and return a deer to Slumber I was interested in learning who this woman was the woman who corrupts these Wards and Cesar was happy to enlighten me again I'll show a complete quote on screen but basically what has been shown in the Cinematic is the culmination of long-hailed tensions the judge cleric and her hallowed Sentinels set up shop here to contain a deer but this is not originally their land and over time the people of bornstead the Kingdom have got rather fed up with this occupation and the queen in her desperation has hardly Whispers of a deer and thus has awoken his power once more so the woman that's been shown in the opening cinematic or the trailer that corrupts the wards is actually the queen of mornstead herself one of the final points of lore I wanted to touch on was the dark Crusaders themselves who are quite a mysterious Bunch as the dark Crusaders who are the bearers of the umbral lantern the dark Crusader is the one that's shown in that initial trailer and the opening cinematic of the game and this person is essentially our predecessor as they kind of toss the lamp towards us and we just get it by chance and we become a dark Crusader so I thought it's quite important to try and understand who these people are again I'll show my full quote on screen where I ask the question about the dark Crusaders but in summer hazar explained that these Crusaders Come From A Distant Orion charge the church that worships Aureus they were called to these lands as a sort of Inquisition due to concerns about the corruption of the hallowed Sentinels sent by the high luminary of the church to investigate these claims and sort out the Schism so there's some tension between the dark crusader and the hallowed Sentinels and of course the umbral lantern itself is a really important item and so again I asked chazar about some information regarding this Lantern this lamp is a heretical artifact connected to the Mysterious World of umbral and it is what makes the player character Immortal they are a sort of revenant who are always connected to the umbral realm as for umbrella itself it is a great mystery at the start of the game and we didn't really get any answers in the two errors that I played chesar described it as a realm where the emotions of humanity manifest the husks the zombie-like enemies I've described that you face in the umbral realm are not real beings rather they are manifestations of intense emotions this is why you will find them mainly centered around areas of great conflict or where terrible things happened it reminds me of the warp from Warhammer 40K where the demons are essentially form given to intense mortal emotions Cesar hinted that the umbral realm appears to have infected the world long ago due to something that the people of mornstead found deep within the mountain within the main and this umbral infection seems to have long affected the traditions of morningstead they used to believe that their kings were cursed because when they buried them in the ground where this humble infection came from they would rise again as revenants and this is why the first area you come to where you fight pieta and where the mausoleum is is a great bridge this is a mausoleum Bridge because they can't bury people within the actual ground this is a purpose-built bridge to house in Mausoleum and I think a mausoleum Bridge is a really cool concept finally Chase are heavily hinted at that that the powers behind umbral are long dead Gods a sort of Eldritch Cosmic horror and that is maybe older than a deer and Aureus themselves and something they themselves fear Cesar told me that there are three ending three options for the player and they all have to do with your alignment with the gods and so if I was to guess I would say there's one ending for a deer one ending for Aureus and one ending for the forces behind umbral this is really exciting to me and I think the lore in this game is shaping up to be really cool what I discuss is obviously just a taste of the surface level and high level lore and again if you want to read the full interview with Cesar which I didn't include everything of course then I will be providing the full text transcript on my patreon for free and that will be linked below so my finishing thoughts on my Impressions with this game as you can tell are pretty good I've done a 40 minute video just for two and a half hours of gameplay as I was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced to be honest before doing this Hands-On I wasn't sure what to expect from this game or what its identity or Hook was but I'm certain about it now this is a game that simultaneously plays homage to the original Ip but is also an entirely new game that blows the original concept out of the water both in tone presentation and mechanics is the combat anything new from what we've seen in the subgenre not really but it's a massive Improvement of the original and is strong enough to hold up the stronger elements of the game like its exploration story and presentation Lords of the Fallen is a beautiful dark and Rich World perhaps the darkest we have seen in this sub-genre it's like if Blasphemous was made into a 3D world a world of oppressive and bloody religions with horrifying Cosmic entities the exploration is a Triumph as I said I had some really cool experiences just in the opening couple of hours playing around with the two realm system and I'm really excited to discover some of the secrets that Cesar hinted at found only within the umbral realm and aside from all of that I just can't wait to play a game like this with seamless integrated uninterrupted Corp with one of my friends I think the team do have some Polish work ahead of them but Lords of the Fallen is shaping up to be a great game with something truly unique to offer

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 146,924

Keywords: lords of the fallen, lordsofthefallen, lords of the fallen 2023, rhogar, Adyr, hexworks, CI games, Harkon, soulslike, new souls like game, souls like, game preview, first look, walkthrough, boss, guide, classes, game demo

Id: kZA5OcFkCS4

Length: 43min 42sec (2622 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023