New The Lords Of The Fallen trailer is giving major Dark Souls vibes
It takes place 1000 years after the original
Soulslike RPG Lords Of The Fallen debuted its first gameplay trailer last night at The Game Awards, showcasing its violent combat, grotesque creature designs, and beautifully grim setting. The Lords Of The Fallen was previously announced as a reboot to the 2014 game of almost the same name (they added a The this time), although it now seems to be a sort-of sequel. Judging from this trailer the devs would be quite happy if someone thought it was Dark Souls 4 by mistake.
The 2014 title was one of the first major releases to emulate FromSoftware's success with Soulslike inspirations, so it's interesting to see the reboot move away from some of the more traditional fantasy-vibe marketing of the original. Instead this new trailer has a lot of the fever dream mightmare designs and mysterious whisper-talking VO we've come to expect from a FromSoft trailer. No complaints here.
The devs have confirmed that the dark fantasy takes place a thousand years after the original, and is set across two interconnected worlds. Axiom and Umbral are, together, five times larger than the first game’s setting. I’m guessing that Axiom is the brighter overworld in the trailer - by brighter, I mean it looks like it’s on fire half the time. That means Umbral would be the darker, more foreboding underside full of skeletal remains in every corner. My favourite shot of the trailer comes at minute 1:04, showing off a giant skeleton that the player can climb on top of. It kind of looks like it has a spine for an arm? And I like it?
Apart from that, the trailer doesn’t give away too much about the game’s combat, though we do get some shots of fighting. Special props to the spiky-headed enemy at the backend of the trailer who literally headbutts the floor in an attempt to attack - it could probably give Pyramid Head a run for his money. The trailer also gives us some glimpses of terrifying boss encounters and some very shiny Knight’s armour for our player character.
A follow-up to the original Lords Of The Fallen has been a long time coming. It was initially announced as Lords Of The Fallen 2 before changing developers to Hexworks, and eventually rebooting the name altogether. The Lords Of The Fallen will launch on PC and consoles at some point in 2023.
For more of the latest news and trailers, check out our Game Awards 2022 hub. We also live-blogged the show as it happened right here.