Lords of the Fallen's biggest achievement is how it rethinks the Souls-like death loop – PREVIEW

You are fighting a boss – a grudge-bearing religious sort, in a graveyard, that’s not a million miles away from Father Gascoigne, if I’m being honest – and you whiff an attack with your zweihander. The penitent one carpes the diem and impales you, skewers you like a pig. You’re down. Dead. Usually, you’d respawn at your bonfire, or shrine, or lantern, or Site of Grace, or whatever flavour of checkpoint you’re using today. But in Lords of the Fallen, the game continues. You are a revenant, now. A soul unhitched from its flesh, cast into the dark realm – the Umbral. In Lords of the Fallen’s land of Mournstead, there are parallel realms, inter-connected and ever-present. The world of the living (Axiom) and the world of the dead (Umbral) co-exist, and house their own unique pathways, enemies, characters, treasures. To die here isn’t an ending, but a new opportunity. “There are several layers of uniqueness in our game, right?” smiles Saul Gascon, head of studio and executive producer at Hexworks when I ask why the developer wanted to mess with a sacred part of the Soulslike gameplay loop. “The most obvious one, and the most high-level, is the Umbral. The whole Umbral concept was designed to twist the death loop to make you (as creative director, Cezar Virtosu, always says) ‘play your own death’. Read more
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