Lords of the Fallen is an upcoming action role-playing video game developed by Hexworks and published by CI Games. A successor to the 2014 video game of the same name, it is set to be released in October 2023 for Windows PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S.

Gameplay
Lords of the Fallen is an action role-playing video game played from a third-person perspective. Like its predecessor, players can use both melee weapons and magic to defeat enemies, and the game's gameplay and combat system adopted elements from Soulslike games. The game's campaign can also be completed cooperatively with another player. The game also features a player-versus-player multiplayer mode.

At the beginning of the game, players can create and customize their own player avatar, and choose from one of nine character classes. The game is set in an interconnected world, one that is several times bigger than that from the 2014 game. In this game, two worlds are layered on top of each other. The world of Axiom is the realm of the living, but players can use a magical lantern to access Umbral, the realm of the dead. Despite sharing the same physical space, an inaccessible area in one realm may be reached by visiting the other realm. When the player is killed, they will be transported to Umbral in which they must return to Axiom and retrieve lost experience points. When the player is killed in the Umbral realm, they will respawn in their last savepoint and lose their unspent XPs. Savepoints are far and few in each region, though players can craft their own savepoints using materials collected from Umbral monsters.

Development
In December 2014, Tomasz Gop, the executive producer of Lords of the Fallen (2014), confirmed the development of a sequel, Lords of the Fallen 2. In May 2015, CI Games announced that the game would be released in 2017, and confirmed that Deck13 Interactive, the lead developer of the first game, would not be involved. Gop revealed in 2017 that the game spent two years on concept stage, and that CI Games has significantly downsized the development team and reduced the scope of the game following the disappointing release of Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3. CI Games announced that Defiant Studios will lead the game's development in 2018, and that they would restart the game's development from scratch. However, CI Games terminated its contract with Defiant one year later, as it deemed their works on the game "inadequate". CI Games then founded Hexworks in 2020, led by Saul Gascon, executive producer, and Cezar Virtosu, creative director, to work on the game. Lords of the Fallen was developed using Unreal Engine 5.

The game was officially revealed by CI Games during Gamescom 2022 as The Lords of the Fallen. It was then rebranded as simply Lords of the Fallen in March 2023. Virtosu revealed that the game was once named Lords of the Fallen: The Dark Crusade, though the studio dropped this name for not reflecting the game's status as a reboot of the series. Hexworks had high ambitions for the game, with Virtosu adding that the studio set out to be "the second reference [after FromSoftware]" for the Soulsborne genre by making "Dark Souls 4.5". It is set to be released on October 13, 2023, for Windows PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S.

References

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Upcoming video games scheduled for 2023
Video games developed in Spain
Video games developed in Romania
Video game sequels
Action role-playing video games
CI Games games
PlayStation 5 games
Windows games
Xbox Series X and Series S games
Unreal Engine games
Soulslike video games
Dark fantasy video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games