Lords of the Fallen (2023)

[W1llus]

I thought Hexworks was the studio and CI Games was the parent or has that line been blurred? Epic didn't buy them out or anything did they?

Epic Games has the devs at gunpoint regarding the Steam release because they fronted the cost for this game's development.

I'm not gonna watch the video so can you elaborate on this? Even Epic is smart enough to know that EGS exclusivity is **** and if it wasn't, they wouldn't have put BL4 on Steam day 1. They're not going to make their money back so long as it stays on EGS.

Hexworks is an internal studio of CI games. Basically one and the same since the CEO of CI games is directly involved with some of the creative decisions regarding lords of the fallens direction. To explain the Epic stuff I'll keep it simple. For clarity CI games has been very tight lipped about the specifics of the deal but they've stated multiple times that Epic contributed heavily in regards to funding for the development of lords of the fallen 2. We dont know if it'll come to steam any time soon if ever. Even if they dont make the money back I mean epic is the one who footed the bill so...

[W1llus]

https://x.com/lotfgame/status/1977803150158667855
https://www.lordsofthefallen.com/news/l ... nniversary
https://www.lordsofthefallen.com/news/l ... s-v2-0-101
New free dlc weapon that directly ties into the sequel. It's a hybrid scaling ultra greatsword (you may be familiar with quality scaling from the souls games so str/dex) Also big QoL patch for the 2023 game. I won't lie we're talking some basic stuff that should of been in the game at launch but better late then never I guess. Oh they've begun posting concept art for enemies in the sequel which I shall include below. For context they all have gag text on them btw as a joke.

[wndrbr]

"Skull ******" is kind of a trashy piece of marketing, I would've never posted something like this about my game.

The monster itself looks look though.

[stormvermin]

I've been griping about the lack of item sorting ever since the game came out and now that it's here, it doesn't even work properly
Sword seems... alright. Similar statwise to Resh-Mesah's Sword but favoring strength slightly over agi. No status effects and unless it has a special move I dunno why anyone would favor it unless they're into the aesthetic or a specific rune setup.

[A Chinese opium den]

AI slop...

[W1llus]

I've been griping about the lack of item sorting ever since the game came out and now that it's here, it doesn't even work properly
Sword seems... alright. Similar statwise to Resh-Mesah's Sword but favoring strength slightly over agi. No status effects and unless it has a special move I dunno why anyone would favor it unless they're into the aesthetic or a specific rune setup.

Yeah the sword currently sucks and needs to be buffed.

"Skull ******" is kind of a trashy piece of marketing, I would've never posted something like this about my game.

The monster itself looks look though.

Yeah it's definitely something

Down here slop is a way of life.

[GentlemanCthulhu]

I for one am super excited for the sequel. I had a complex relationship with LotF where I hated the game for 3 years then they released the 2.0 update and it immediately became one of my favorite souls-likes. The end-game still drags on for way too long, but if they can start from the state the game is now and improve up on it for the sequel, it could be really great. Also the umbral ending being the canon one is both expected and also interesting. I just hope they don't repeat the same mistakes with Umbral that they made with the first game.

[W1llus]

We're getting close to the end of October and the devs have confirmed we will see a gameplay trailer by the end of the year.
https://x.com/lotfgame/status/1982183315483308525
Going to go ahead and post the remaining concept art and get it out of the way


Not going to lie these first two (especially the second one) are just necromorphs. Not exactly a bad thing but also not super original.

I'm pretty sure this is just a fist weapon. The whole "realm-piercing" bit is likely flavor text.
All of the concept art they've posted (including the new female dark crusader mage) is available as phone wall papers btw for those interested.
https://x.com/lotfgame/status/1983224335469850922

[CornCake]

Finished this game today, a few thoughts not mentioned in the review...

• They stuck to their promise, character selection had male/female in it, and while there was body type selection it was used quite literally for the actual body type (muscular, large, skinny etc.).

• Weapon animations were incredibly smooth yet punchy, lacking the odd inhuman motions of FromSoft titles, and there was no bloody wall recoil so you can use whatever weapon in a corridor.

• Umbral mechanic was interesting for the most part, as if you die in Axiom (the normal realm) you get forced into Umbral instead of respawning back (have to die in Umbral for that to happen),but the game encourages you to stay there more than in Axiom in order to progress (like how water blocks the path in many areas, but water does not exist in Umbral), and it ruins the art direction as the Umbral realm only has one environment throughout the entire game. They also borrowed the ******* eye of the jailer from WoW's worst expansion so you cannae stay in Umbral forever and have to leave using items set throughout the level.

• Bosses were unfortunately fairly weak. Most were uninspired or lacked great mechanics (Hollow Crow being the worst) and the final boss is a worse gimmick fight than True King Allant.

• They fixed camera issues that have been plaguing soulslikes for years. The walls don't cause a full zoom and when an enemy is blocking the view from behind, it becomes transparent so you keep view of yourself at all times. The camera also is zoomed out on during large boss fights, with you being able to see through legs if they block the character.

• Every level was a hallway, no poison swamp though. The hallways were at the least interesting, as you needed to swap realms to navigate every one of them.

• Enemy variety is lacking, with most being reused to excessive amounts (especially the umbral enemies, you see them all by the third level, and they NEVER change it up).

• Performance is arse. 5070 TI and 13900k struggled to keep the game above 60fps on 1440p with DLSS off (**** ai blurry ********), and the game stuttered massively the entire way through. Running through Special K helps, but only so much. The stutters got me killed more than a few times.

8.5 is generous @WaterMage, I'd rate it a 7. I'm very excited for the sequel though, as this game was impressive nonetheless and I'm hopeful they can iron out the issues.

[W1llus]

Was not expecting to be making a post so soon but we got a surprising amount of info today and some that I missed from our dear friend the CEO of CI games Marek Tyminski. Let's begin with the confirmation that LOTF 2023 is getting ANOTHER update and this time it's hard mode https://x.com/tyminski_marek/status/1982886962890686633. What does that entail? I don't know. Currently you can already double the enemies, randomize the enemies, randomize items, reduce vestiges, etc, so besides messing with enemy stats I'm not sure what they got planned. Now to news for the sequel coming up next year. We got confirmation the sequel will feature 4 major biomes tied to a hub area which is a big departure from 2023 https://x.com/tyminski_marek/status/1982110005454356625. I could be wrong but a popular term that comes to mind for this kind of game design is "theme park" like an MMO or an actual theme park. Hell it reminds me of how Universal's Epic Universe is currently laid out; a big hub that connects to 4 different major areas.

We can also safely assume the tower featured in a lot of the early art they showed is likely the hub area.

That or it's the Orius themed biome... or both.

Believe it or not we can likely safely identify at least 2 of these 4 major biomes. One of which being the moon cult kingdom


and this volcano area respectively

I'm even willing to make the bold prediction said volcano area is the Adyr themed section which will make more sense in a moment.

Now the big update is they shared a **** ton of new concept for upcoming enemies in the new game which I went ahead and categorized based on faction. Some of this is guess work on my end. Sorry for the **** image quality btw I stole the best screen grabs I could from people in the xeet comments since they were all in a single gif

Moon Cult



Rhogar



Umbral???




Unknown



The next lifting the veil is coming soon so who knows maybe that's when we'll see some gameplay or maybe they'll elaborate on all the new enemy concept art.

[rusty_shackleford]

Shame I have zero interest in soulslop or I'd give this a go after all the work they've put in

[Mordred]

the onslaught of soulslikes is a bit disturbing. i find those pretty boring too

[stormvermin]

We got confirmation the sequel will feature 4 major biomes tied to a hub area which is a big departure from 2023

I'm reading that as taking a page from Demon's Souls' worlds. 2023's "biomes" weren't exactly diverse and while the level design was at least imo the game's greatest asset, there wasn't a huge amount of interplay between areas save for outliers such as Pilgrim's Perch and Calrath. As long as they're building on that, I think it's going to be fine.

[W1llus]

Alright guys after all this waiting the new lifting the veil is out and I listened to it so you dudes don't have to. Clocking in at just over 40 minutes this was a long one but do we learn anything that's relevant? Before we begin I'm going to start with a tweet from Marek confirming LOTF 2 is actually a reboot of the reboot https://x.com/tyminski_marek/status/199 ... 66456?s=20. Here are the cliff notes:

• LOTF 2 takes place one thousand years after LOTF (2023) which took place I think one thousand years after LOTF (2014)

• LOTF 2 will take us outside of Mournstead into 4 different distinct biomes.

• They confirm that Umbral (dead) realm is bleeding into Axiom (the living world)

• They are doing more playtesting in this game to see if players can organically make their way through the levels without the lamp guidance system they patched in with 2.0

• LOTF 2 won't be as grim dark as 2023.

• They were excited discussing ways to mess with the player. In their own words "don't trust us".

• The other two judges will be more relevant in LOTF 2

• The Nohuta (ancient civilization of Umbral worshippers) will make an appearance of some form.

• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Demon's Souls got a shout out

• Next episode will cover the enemies of LOTF 2 and will supposedly release sooner this time around.

10 pieces of concept art were shown which I will post here:

[logincrash]

The same was as my Melon Husk mental tic, I have to think to myself "Fords of the Lallen" every time I see this game's title.

[stormvermin]

They are doing more playtesting in this game to see if players can organically make their way through the levels without the lamp guidance system they patched in with 2.0

Skill issue on the players' part tbh. A good number of levels were linear or mostly linear; I can't imagine where players were getting turned around besides trying to figure out all the ways Pilgrim's Perch linked with itself or navigating that one submerged section of the Cistern.

LOTF 2 won't be as grim dark as 2023.

This is unfortunate. I really liked how everything was bleeding and covered with spikes. The new art looks good though so I'll reserve judgment.

[W1llus]

They are doing more playtesting in this game to see if players can organically make their way through the levels without the lamp guidance system they patched in with 2.0

Skill issue on the players' part tbh. A good number of levels were linear or mostly linear; I can't imagine where players were getting turned around besides trying to figure out all the ways Pilgrim's Perch linked with itself or navigating that one submerged section of the Cistern.

LOTF 2 won't be as grim dark as 2023.

This is unfortunate. I really liked how everything was bleeding and covered with spikes. The new art looks good though so I'll reserve judgment.

I think what they meant isnt that the game will be less gory or less disturbing just instead of 3 bad endings you may see a good ending in this game.

[sheet]

Game(: Subtitle optional)
Game 2(: Subtitle optional)
Game 3: Mandatory Subtitle
Game: Remastered

Is it that hard?

[W1llus]

At this point there's a 99% chance the gameplay trailer is going to be shown at the game awards. Speaking of marek confirmed the statue in the desert is not in fact related to LOTF 2 and its for something else
https://x.com/tyminski_marek/status/199 ... 83352?s=20

[Oyster Sauce]

I don't know what the point of a gameplay trailer for rollslop is. It's like making a trailer for an F1 racing sim or a football game.

[W1llus]

There's a **** ton of info that has come out within the last 36 hours and with the gameplay trailer coming tonight there's going to be to much to make a big info post for now. I'll go ahead and link this:

This is the confirmed FINAL update to the game. Completely overhauls the enemies and bosses to be tougher and more complex. It actually does more than that. I already know from an acquaintance that

► Show Spoiler

they completely replaced the final boss of the Orius route (the original was horrible btw barely could be called a boss)

Sadly they did not change the hollow crow one of the worst bosses in the game. it seems everything else got changed but there's a lot of testing that needs to be done so I'm not going to bother typing a detailed summary. Here's a link to the patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... ?l=english

[W1llus]

Where do I even begin. Today we got a little bit of information regarding why there was woke **** in LOTF 2023. https://x.com/tyminski_marek/status/200 ... 58033?s=20 According to Marek when Hexwork started in 2020 he was far less involved and those decisions were never run by him until he started to take a far more active role in late 2024 when he began trying to undue the damage. I feel like 2 black npcs (one of which is a lesbian), retconning a major character to be a women, and hiring yongyea at all would be pretty hard to ignore but who knows I'm not a CEO. We got the gameplay trailer at the game awards as expected:

Personally I liked what I saw and it's good to see they are heading in the right direction. My guess is they repurposed The Surge limb targeting execution system when they decided gore and dismemberment would be a key point. I think a lot of the new enemy designs are sick but it did not slip past me they reused the Scourge Sister and Skin Stealer from 2023. Something to keep in mind going forward is how many of the enemies will actually be new or just reskinned. I'm of the opinion reusing assets is okay provided they don't just copy and paste and give them something new to do. We got some names for the bosses and a few enemies and little lore blurbs for the bosses. I don't care enough to go into them but I am curious considering we have a chinese...japanese....korean? idk themed area if we'll be allowed to horrifically kill the dragon boss like everything else. I'm holding off going over 2.5 until more of the hot fixes come out and I know the exact changes. Here's a nice interview regarding the sequel https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/19188 ... ike-sequel I do like how much PC optimization is a major focus but lets see if that actually materializes in the final product on launch.

[wndrbr]

The Surge was developed by a different studio, these guys couldn't repurpose its dismemberment system.

[W1llus]

The Surge was developed by a different studio, these guys couldn't repurpose its dismemberment system.

Many of the people in CI games came directly from Deck 13. That being said there's a strong chance it won't be a 1-1 recreation of the surges system and more like a hold x to execute kind of deal.

[W1llus]

I've been playing 2.5 up to roughly half way through the game on veteran I think it's safe to say its a genuine straight improvement on the package as a whole. Bosses are significantly improved noticeably they waste your time less with gimmicky attacks you have to wait for them to finish before you can attack them again. A lot of the weightlessness of the game has been removed. Not completely removed of course the sound design for lotf is still poor over all but its leaps and bounds better than it was at launch. Sound design and enemy variety are still pain points but its impressive how much they were willing to stick around and fix their game and the additional customization options to make the game harder are something i hope is in lotf 2 at launch.