LORDS OF THE FALLEN

Though its knightly get-ups remind us of the Arthurian tone of Dark Souls, and its gothic environments carry the miasma of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, it doesn’t take long for Hexworks’ Soulslike to spill beyond the mould in which it’s been set.

When we misjudge the reach of our flail in an early scuffle, we’re met with a flurry of fatal blows and fall to the ground defeated. But rather than seeing a taunting death screen as we’ve come to expect from the genre, we receive something all the more encouraging. As a second chance, we are instantly resurrected – rising from the same point we fell, albeit not quite in the same place.

The world of the Umbral awaits you upon death: a dulled, greyish place that’s a nearidentical twin to the realm of the living. Its walls are strewn with petrified body-horror figures, and every nook and passageway is a scene of macabre, miscellaneous torture. The creatures you’d usually encounter in the living world are joined by extra monstrosities – some real, others mere hallucinations that unpredictably threaten to dispel into the air or harden to life in front of you. Assassins will arrive should you dally for too long, and your healing flasks are less nourishing. It’s a dangerous place, in other words, and one where you are given no second chances.