Lords of the Fallen 2 is aiming for release on new generation consoles and PC, meaning it's skipping PS4 and Xbox One. CI Games is going to start marketing Lords of the Fallen 2 in Q3 of 2022, with the release date planned for an undetermined point in 2023. The game is being developed by CI Games' internal studio Hexworks, with the current version having been in the works since 2019. In a recent investor report, CI Games offered an update on Lords of the Fallen 2's development. RELATED: Lords of the Fallen 2 Still in the Works Lords of the Fallen 2 was first announced all the way back in 2014, and now it seems as though the game is finally nearing its release date. However, Lords of the Fallen does have its fans and sold reasonably well, so it makes sense that CI Games is pursuing a sequel. Lords of the Fallen reviews weren't nearly as positive as Dark Souls, with the game earning an overall mixed reception from critics. In 2014, Deck13 Interactive teamed with CI Games to make the Soulslike Lords of the Fallen, and a sequel has been anticipated in the years since. These "Soulslike" games are defined by their tough difficulty and familiar combat mechanics, becoming a genre of their own. Certain doors and areas will simply remain locked off until their allotted time.The incredible popularity of FromSoftware's Dark Souls franchise saw a number of copycats hit the scene, with various degrees of success. While there are (mercifully) no quest arrows, the narrative tends to determine roughly where you’re allowed to be. You can experience a certain amount of satisfying ‘I shouldn’t be in this area yet, but there’s some great loot so I’ll press on’ exploration, but the overall map size and the way the story unfolds prevents this from happening too often. It’s a smaller game than Dark Souls, lasting around 15 hours or so on a first play-through (though to collect and accomplish absolutely everything possible, a couple of additional play-throughs are necessary.) There’s also a spot of portal hopping for some external maps. Much of the game takes place inside the grounds of a walled monastery/citadel complex, complete with graveyard, catacombs and other such gloomy locales. Level design fares a bit better, and the developers clearly understand the appeal of the interconnected Souls map with decent enemy placement and secrets to uncover off the main path. Some of the encounters have some interesting quirks (a rage meter that increases as the Lord damages you, an insta-death attack that only standing on certain areas of ground will avoid,) but their design trends towards ‘large, burly humanoid who’ll roar at you in a pre-fight cutscene.’ Even when the game throws a ‘2v1’ style boss fight at you, they take turns to attack. But even taking that into account, the bosses here seem to have been tuned a little too easy. Lords of the Fallen has clearly not been designed to be as punishing as the game it’s inspired by, and that’s fine. As somebody who just finished up the Dark Souls 2 DLC trilogy I absolutely accept that my concept of what constitutes a difficult boss fight may presently be hovering at the extreme end of the spectrum, but none of the fights here took me more than four attempts. I say ‘potentially’ useful, because the bosses themselves (the titular Lords) aren’t terribly challenging. Though Lords of the Fallen is going to mostly come up short in a direct comparison, the conclusion ‘didn’t manage to be quite as good as Dark Souls’ should be read largely as praise, not as condemnation. Lords of the Fallen is a game full of systems and mechanics that are clearly influenced by the Souls titles ( Dark Souls in particular,) which means it’s also letting itself in for a great deal of close scrutiny an inevitable consequence of borrowing from one of the most analysed series’ in gaming. Given the great success of FromSoftware’s Souls series, it was only a matter of time (and has actually taken longer than I’d anticipated) for another company to have a go at challenging, third-person combat with stamina management. Once there were enough titles following similar mechanical cues, First-Person Shooter became a genre. Others were fine games in their own right. For a time, every shooter released after Doom was a ‘ Doom clone.’ Some of them deserved that name. Successful innovators tend to be emulated.
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