Lord of the Fallen is available as a Steam download or retail version. The retail version also has to be registered to a Steam account and can‘t be reselled.

 .

Lords of the Fallen is the new action role-playing game developed by german developer Deck13 Interactive and polish developer CI Games. You play Harkyn, a villain and ex-prisoner who has to save the world. In this 15-20 hours long game, you will find out why exactly he is the right one.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The atmosphere in Lords of the Fallen is excellent. In the first rooms of the snowy mountain fortress we already feel the dark threat from foreign powers. Even the artdesign is fantastic. The journey through the mountain fortress is staged perfectly and the lighting effects, models and level design fits outstandingly well. These factors create a great atmosphere. That is a sensational performance of the quite small development team! Each weapon and armor is unique; therefore, one of our main goals in the game was to get new items. All this could have been the scaffolding for a fascinating story. However, the developers unfortunately missed their chance.

 .

Lords of the Fallen shouldn‘t be compared to Dark Souls. This game must be regarded rather as an independent action RPG. The controls with mouse and keyboard are more precise than with gamepad. Most of the times you are busy with battles in this game. These are not easy, therefore, you have to use all of your given skills.

The battle system basically works well and gives us the feeling of become better constantly. The movement speed is determined by the weight of our armor. On the other hand, the attack speed depends on the weapon you are using.

 .

The requirements may be completely different depending on the style of playing. And that’s the opposite of a well balanced game. Lord of the Fallen has everything what a good RPG needs to have. However, we have noticed that at the end of the production, probably something went wrong. This does not mean that Lords of the Fallen makes no fun, but we suspect that a fine-tuning would be done, if this game could have got more development time.

 .

The player has the option to upgrade his weapons and armor at the blacksmith. It is lots of fun and a big motivation to collect new equipment, to test new weapons and to expand our talents. New enemy types, that require new strategies from us are waiting right behind the next corner. We have to admit that we like the combat system in this game.

 .

Lords of the Fallen is not Dark Souls. And that is good. Maybe this game is inspired by Dark Souls. But we think there needs to be courtesy and respect for this small team and what they have created. The atmosphere is terrific, the combat system is great. Unfortunately, we are not amused about the story and the unbalanced skill-system. There is definitely a lack of fine-tuning within those crucial factors. But that is not so bad, because Lord of the Fallen is the perfect replacement for players who like the game mechanics of Dark Souls, but were not able achieve the challenges because of the extremely diffucilty level.

 .

We love the setting, the dark atmosphere, the great effects and the gorgeous battle system.
We think you should give the game a try and do not get affected by Dark Souls fanboys.

.

.

Tested and written by Pascal van der Meer & Marcel Krafczyk

.