Can Lords of the Fallen surpass Lies of P?

Lords of the Fallen, CI Games and Hexworks' upcoming souls-like role-playing game is just a few hours away from its official release. Built using Epic Games' latest Unreal Engine 5.1, it aims to deliver an immaculate experience that not only builds on the systems established by FromSoftware's games, but also evolves on them.

With Lords of the Fallen's release on the horizon, 2023 seems to have become the golden year for souls-like action role-playing games. From Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty to Neowiz's Lies of P, and now CI Games' Lords of the Fallen, 2023 has been jam-packed with high-quality title. That's not including the countless souls-likes indie games that have released this year.

What's even more fascinating is that each of these souls-likes, more or less, delivered a truly unique and amazing experience. Wo Long basically redifined Team Ninja's quintessential action combat system. Meanwhile, Lies of P gave fans a taste of an hybrid experience that clubs all the positive aspects of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and even Sekiro.

As such, Lords of the Fallen has a lot to live upto, not only as a souls-like RPG, but also as a souls-like title releasing the same year as truly exceptional games like Lies of P and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.

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Lords of the Fallen introduces plenty of innovative ideas to the traditional souls-like combat and exploration

Lords of the Fallen's biggest strength is in its rather innovative approach to level design and exploration. Instead of featuring linear levels with multiple hidden sub-loactions for players to explore, the world in CI Games' latest souls-like RPG is quite non-linear. It gives players the ability to traverse between two entirely different realms, Axiom and Umbral, at the press of a button.

Lies of P, a game that came out roughly a month prior to Lords of the Fallen, gave fans a look at how a souls-like game can be crafted without rehashing the same ideas from FromSoftware's games. And CI Games and Hexworks seem to have taken a similar route while designing their own take on the formula.

On surface, Lords of the Fallen looks quite identical to games like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. However, there are quite a number of key differences in its moment-to-moment gameplay and combat that sets it apart from any of the other "Souls-Borne" games out there. Apart from the unique realm-shifting mechanic, it also features a rather unique combat system.

Instead of being entirely dependant on melee and magical attacks, the game also features a tertairy method of dealing damage, i.e., Soul Flaying. It essentially allows you to yank an enemie's astral form and deal damage to it. It's quite a powerful tool, which, if used properly, can quickly turn tides of some of the most intense combat scenarios in your favor.

Lies of P also features its own set of unique gameplay mechanics, such as the Legion Arm and the unique approach to parrying and countering attacks. However, those do feel somewhat trivial compared to the sheer scale of new things that Lords of the Fallen brings to the table, essentially evolving the souls-like genre beyond its current form.

As someone who's spent more than 40 hours playing through it, I can confirm that CI Games' latest souls-like feels like a natural evolution of the genre. And while its ideas might not hit hundred percent of the time, they do so most of the time. Whether it can surpass the popularity of Lies of P or other souls-likes that have released this year is up for debate.

However, in my books, it definitely surpasses most of the souls-like action role-playing games that I've played this year. It even surpasses the likes of the Demon's Souls (remake) mostly due to the amount of new things it brings to the table.