Will your legend be one of light... or one of darkness?
"Mournstead has fallen, its great armies decimated by the legions of Adyr, the demon god. But one light still flickers in the ever growing gloom..."
Lords of the Fallen is a Dark Fantasy Souls-like RPG developed by Hexworks, published by CI Games, and released on October 13th, 2023 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Serving as a sequel to 2014's Lords of the Fallen (although it has been said to serve as a Soft Reboot), it actively takes inspiration from Dark Souls in both terms of tone and Nintendo Hard enemy encounters.
Lords of the Fallen takes place a thousand years after the original. The land of Mournstead, which has guarded Adyr's prison for generations, is on the verge of collapse now that Adyr's followers have risen and are hellbent on bringing back their god. The only one who can stop them is the Lampbearer, a revenant with the power to travel between both the material world of Axiom and the spirit world of Umbral using the Umbral Lamp. But many choices lie ahead for the Lampbearer, and not everything is as it seems in this demonic conflict.
Lords of the Fallen contains examples of the following tropes:
- Angels, Devils and Squid: The setting's cosmology steadily develops into this, with Orius as an unseen god of light whose first worshipper you discover even sprouts angelic wings, Adyr as a god of demonic hordes, and The Putrid Mother as a far more eldritch threat lurking in the Umbral realm.
- Big Bad: Adyr, the tyrannical demon god that was felled long ago. Or so you are led to believe. The truth is a fair bit more complicated.
- The Chosen One: The Lampbearer was resurrected by the Umbral Lamp to be its next bearer, after their predecessor was killed.
- Corrupt Church: The Knight Sentinels, once supposedly more tolerant and benevolent, have by the time of the game descended into bloodthirsty fanaticism, making them little better than their enemies.
- Cosmic Horror Story: The game was apparently inspired by this aesthetic, "where the monstrous meets the divine," and it shows. The world is on the verge of collapse thanks to the awakening of an unkillable demon god. Said demon god may actually be humanity's guardian, actively caring about them where the other gods in the setting are at best ambivalent.note Demons in service of Adyr run around killing everything they come across while the servants of the supposed Good Counterpart to the demon god are scarcely better.
- Degraded Boss: Roughly of the "secondary" bosses fought also serve as stronger, respawning enemies you can fight in normal environments. Usually the fights against their "boss incarnations" incorporate a few extra situational gimmicks, like them receiving boons from Umbral Parasites.
- Distant Sequel: The game takes place about a thousand years after the original.
- Evil Versus Evil: In one corner we have the Hallowed Sentinels, former defenders of Mournsted now oppressive and dogmatic fanatics, the Rhogar, infernal demons who corrupt and kill indiscriminately, and finally the inhabitants of the Umbral Plain, who only seem interested in consuming vigor… which is in everybody. Take your pick.
- Final Boss: Depending on your path, one of three bosses can serve as this. The Radiant path (the one the game most encourages you to take the first time around) culminates in a battle with Adyr. The Umbral Ending sees you face Elianne the Starved, while the Inferno ending has no unique final boss fight, with your last opponent dependent on your order of purifying the beacons and visiting Castle Bramis.
- Guide Dang It!: Many unique weapons have hidden weapon arts, similar to Dark Souls III or Elden Ring, but said arts can only be used with proper gear equipped and with a specific button input that the game does not inform you of. More tellingly, an unaware player can very easily lock themselves out of a number of sidequests, including two of the game's three endings.
- Happy Ending Override: The canonical "Balance" ending of the original game was framed as ending on a fairly positive note, especially with the right choices taken concerning the minor choices beyond what Harkyn does with Adyr's rune. Balance is restored between the mortal and Rhogar realms, there are enough survivors at the monastery to confirm the truth about Antanas's plans, and humanity remains free of the influence of gods. Flash forward a thousand years and Adyr is on the verge of returning, Antanas went through an in-universe Historical Hero Upgrade while Harkyn experienced the opposite, civilization has backslid towards fanatically worshipping gods oncemore, and the act of casting aside Adyr's rune is treated as the greatest mistake Harkyn ever did.
- Multiple Endings: There are three possible endings that you can get.
- Radiant ending: Unlocked by purifying all of the beacons and defeating Adyr, Bereft Exile. After Adyr is defeated, the Lampbearer is destroyed by a great light, heavily implied to be Orius disposing of them.
- Umbral ending: Unlocked by undergoing a lengthy series of sidequests that culminates in a battle against Elianne the Starved. This unleashes the Putrid Mother and merges the realms of Axiom and Umbral. It's implied that everything is consumed by the Putrid Mother because of this.
- Inferno ending: Unlocked by unlocking the Empowered Rune of Adyr on all 5 beacons and defeating Judge Cleric. Adyr is brought back in the body of Judge Cleric from before she rebelled against him. He and the Lampbearer go on a crusade to re-establish the former as the god of the world, with the Lampbearer becoming the first of his Rhogar Lords.
- Series Continuity Error: While effort was put into accounting for several apparent continuity errors between both games (the Judge Cleric being retconned to be a woman with this inconsistency acknowledged in-game), there's at least one instance that offers not even a handwave. Specifically, Andreas of Ebb boldly proclaims himself a descendant of the now-legendary Antanas from the original game, and the Book of Lineage you find for him helps reinforce that. This is in spite of the fact that audio logs found in the original game establish that Antanas's wife died at some point shortly after giving birth to Antanas's son Berinon, and at some point Berinon was killed or died, leaving Antanas with no known living relatives and no indication of relatives or fathering more children.
- Stalked by the Bell: Staying in the Umbral Realm activates a timer. The longer you stay, the greater the likelihood of the randomly spawning enemies in the Umbral Realm to be be stronger than the basic zombie-type threats. Staying so long that the timer runs out spawns the Scarlet Shadow, a stronger version of a Bringer of Stillness that simultaneously starts inflicting wither damage on you while also blocking off your ability to heal with the Sanguinarix... all while normal enemies continue to spawn in anyways.
- Underground Monkey: Man, many enemies in the game exist as reskinned variations of a core concept, such as an archer enemy, a heavily-armored infantryman, or dogs.
- Unreliable Expositor: This being a Souls-like RPG, taking any information at anyone’s word (besides item descriptions) is to be taken with a grain of salt as what they say may be an unintentional half-truth, what they believe to be true, or outright lies. Not even the gods are exempt from this.
