Lords of the Fallen Previews

City Interactive and Deck13’s Lords of the Fallen is the subject of two new previews, which once again extoll the RPG’s many promising design elements, features, and other virtues.

We start off at Strategy Informer:

Armour design in particular is glorious, all sharp edges, unnecessary ornamentation and vibrant colours. Rogues and lightly armoured characters will plump for hooded cloaks and leather, mages for flowing robes that have some of the best cloth animation I’ve ever seen in a video game. Warrior types will find a plethora of intimidating full plate and chain. The developers say that you can mix and match armour sets, too. No getting stuck with a design you don’t like just because it offers better stats. Each style has the benefits and drawback you would expect, with a few interesting twists. During the demo we saw a hulking enemy monstrosity being lured over some fragile wooden boards, his weight causing him to plummet to his death. Looking to wear full plate armour yourself? Yeah, you might want to take that on board.

Speaking of enemies, they’re looking pretty swell too. We saw a nice mix of types, from ‘infected’ footsoldiers that have a chance of re spawning when defeated, to the afore-mentioned hulking shield-bearers and creepy giant spiders fond of a good ambush. Like Dark Souls the key is to learn how each enemy operates, exploiting each one’s weakness as you discover them. If you get killed in Lords of the Fallen the enemies will respawn, so there’s no resting on your laurels during a dungeon crawl. Likewise, you should be prepared for some dastardly enemy behaviour. Spiders, for example, won’t chase fleeing players, but instead lay eggs in anticipation of their return. The next time you step back around that corner you’ll get swarmed by tiny baby arachnids. Lovely.

And then head over to The Game Jar for more:

That’s not to say that the game is too easy. There’s going to be, depending on the gameplay style, around 20 hours of play in the game. That being said, once you’re in the rhythm though, it’s easy to see this becoming an Internet speed-run favourite. The way the game sucks you in though isn’t its story, or its next gen graphics or enjoyable smashing of nasty skulls. It’s that your anti-hero Harkyn has ‘˜credibility’.

The game’s lore and entire creative side has been started from scratch, so everything in here is brand new.

That is something that comes across and makes you connect with Harkyn despite the RPG element of the game being rather secondary to the action and tactical nuance needed for the combat system. Again it means that things are not just there to be powerful or to make yourself heavy or affect your gameplay, but it can just look cool and be fun for, as I put it, kicking ass.