Valor Mortis
The souls-like genre has undergone countless revisions since its inception, but one seemingly simple transformation yet to successfully come to fruition is first-person. Valor Mortis confronts this challenging adaptation by wedding the battle-tested formula from FromSoftware's catalog with the fast-paced mobility of developer One More Level's Ghostrunner series. Set in an alternate Napoleonic Europe corrupted by a supernatural plague, the game casts players as William, a resurrected soldier of the Grande Armée who must navigate the world transformed by endless war and occult corruption. Every notable souls-like game relies on the third-person camera to telegraph enemy attacks and manage spatial awareness. Valor Mortis instead leverages much more fluid movement mechanics to compensate for the inherent limitations of first-person. It positions itself as a technical experiment in adapting souls-like design philosophy to a fundamentally different framework, which could spawn a new trend for action RPGs.
Valor Mortis ran an open pre-alpha playtest from October 8th to the 13th. It was riddled with performance and balancing issues and the blurry graphics that have become commonplace in Unreal Engine 5 games, but that's all to be expected and excused from a pre-alpha. Nevertheless, it successfully demonstrated the potential of a first-person souls like. The game's movement is responsive, the combat is engaging albeit annoyingly difficult at times, and the perspective makes combining guns, magic, and swordplay exceptionally engaging. If I took anything away from the demo, it's that I now expect other studios to reevaluate how they confront first-person close-quarters combat to create a more adaptable challenge and less repetitive flow (I'm looking at you, Elder Scrolls 6).
In recent years the term "souls-like" has been flaunted around by publishers and journalists in the attempt to make unrelated games appear more ambitious. This is not Valor Mortis' strategy. Valor Mortis is a true souls-like with open-level map designs, re-skinned souls and bonfires, respawned enemies upon resting, and of course the notable difficulty. If you've played Dark Souls, this game won't have too many surprises. It does borrow some of my favorite features that make occasional appearances in the genre, such as the rally feature from Bloodborne (dealing damage after recently losing health will restore a portion of the lost health), the posture bar from Sekiro, and an easier-to-execute parry system akin to Lies of P's. Valor Mortis holds strongly to the souls-like formula, with its only major showstopper being first-person. As a souls-like fan, I don't see this as an issue.
The free-flowing combat system offers a satisfying amount of variation during a fight. You can enter combat spewing flames from your hand as you move within your sword's range before quickly dashing backwards to avoid the enemy's strike while you switch to a firearm to unleash a precise attack from a distance. The speed at which you can move around the enemies and position yourself for whichever attack type you choose next makes the combat exhilarating. It holds true to one of my favorite aspects of the souls-like genre: no matter the situation you're in, if you Get Good™ you can succeed.
Aside from the perspective shift, Valor Mortis deviates from the genre in a few modest ways. One such example is the leveling system. Traditional souls-likes have players trading currency to increase stats one point at a time. It's predictable and modular. Valor Mortis instead opts for a more guided approach where you're provided a selection of three skills, each of which can be leveled multiple times. Once leveled beyond a set amount, the next three unlock. The skills are less esoteric than most souls-like. They read simply, such as, "You will gain 6 maximum endurance." Overall the game comes off as straightforward, which will potentially attract more casual RPG fans. The spellcasting is another mechanic that strays from tradition. It instead aligns more with traditional RPGs such as the Elder Scrolls series. You have a mana meter filled with "Nephtoglobin," which the lore states is the corrupted substance responsible for the plague. The meter is filled by performing combative actions like attacking or parrying. This strays from the souls-like formula's limited supply trope.
One souls-like pattern Valor Mortis didn't stray from was difficulty. As a souls veteran, I was not expecting to be this challenged. The standard enemies aren't too much of an issue, though even the weakest enemies have delayed attacks, making parrying difficult. The bosses, however, were frustrating. The main boss of the pre-alpha took a few too many tries until I learned he had a second phase, at which point my controller was stuck in the drywall. Fortunately, a benefit of the first-person perspective is it's the first souls-like that feels great to play on keyboard and mouse. My ego is too big to blame myself for losing so many times, but I cannot honestly say it was unfair or imbalanced. Although the game contains plenty of annoying delayed attacks, it relies on feint attacks, i.e., lifting his left armament just to shoot you with his triple right shoulder-mounted firearms while you're distracted. If there are no major balancing adjustments before release, Valor Mortis will lean on the more difficult side of the genre.
Of course we haven't seen the full story, but from what is given so far, the story appears rather surface level and on-the-nose at times. The setting of this game is spectacularly well-executed. It's dark, gritty, and Napoleonic. The story is also quite interesting and left me wanting more, but the character you play, William, is... bizarre. He's an English-speaking undead French soldier with a British accent who's dialogue delivers exposition and over-exaggerated voice acting that feels out of place. He often gives off anime protagonist vibes. If you've played Ghostrunner 1 or 2 then you won't be shocked by the prioritization of gameplay over story, but it was disappointing to see such a critical narrative tool fall short compared to the game's world.
Overall, this is a unique and promising entry to the genre and an impressive next step for developers, One More Level. I enjoyed myself in the pre-alpha and will certainly be playing the full game. Valor Mortis is expected to release in 2026 on PC, Xbox X/S, and PlayStation 5. It'll have you exploring the alternate history of nineteenth-century Europe while fighting off undead soldiers in a fast-paced, fluid, first-person souls like.
