Valor Mortis review

September and October are absolutely packed with new games, but I hope you can turn your attention to a AA gem called Valor Mortis. From the same developers behind the popular Ghostrunner series, Valor Mortis is the studio's first-person take on a Soulslike. I know what you’re thinking: not another Soulslike! But trust me when I say this is a standout title for October that should definitely be on your radar.

One More Level’s take on the Napoleonic era is absolutely fascinating, as it’s a piece of history that is rarely touched in the gaming scene. The only other game that did something similar that I recall is Steelrising, another Soulslike title taking place during the same broad historical era. Rest in peace Spiders… Anyway, there’s some unexpected twists and turns throughout the story, especially when it comes to the source of the plague and all the mutations.

Valor Mortis final preview

A first person Soulslike to be excited about

GAMINGTRENDHenry Viola

Gameplay is broken down into chapters, with fast travel available at any lantern to return to a previous chapter’s lantern. You are encouraged to revisit previous chapters as a lot of areas are unreachable your first time around since you haven’t acquired the required ability yet. Aside from progressing the main narrative forward, there are also a multitude of interesting side quests to partake in, usually involving solving light puzzles or going down obscure paths to find an item. While they aren’t ground breaking, they do give a deeper lore on the world.

Moment to moment combat is crisp and satisfying, with an emphasis on parrying. I usually get a bit nauseous when playing first-person games, especially fast-paced ones, but surprisingly I had none of that with Valor Mortis. Stamina runs out a bit too fast, but hey, what kind of Soulslike game doesn’t?

There is some room for build variety with the game’s Amber system, which is essentially like amulets or rings in other games that provide passive or active bonuses. The more you level up, the more Ambers you can equip. Some examples include healing health slowly or causing an explosion when shooting a weak point. A maximum of five Ambers can be equipped. You can also reset your level at the cost of 3500 Catalysts (the souls currency equivalent).

I was impressed with the level design during my previews, and the full game consistently delivers on that throughout its entire runtime. You’ll traverse through numerous locales ranging from abandoned battlefields and dark caverns to poison swamps (yes) and flooded farms. Each environment is broken down into several paths that are initially gated by Metroidvania-like progression, but also nooks and crannies that reward you for exploring.

The only complaint I have, if any, is that enemy types become quite recycled once you hit the mid-game. There are variants of existing ones, such as brutes that use a different weapon or are flame-empowered, but that’s about it. There are some new ones, such as extremely annoying flying bugs, that show up later on, but I wish there could have been more raw variety overall.

On the other hand, bosses are an absolute highlight, frequently blending the team’s signature platforming forte with frantic Soulslike action. Without spoiling too much, there’s a particular boss that made me chuckle out loud given how ludicrous the context was. It's a haunted windmill by the way... Despite that, it had me on my toes from start to finish, testing my mastery of not only all my different weapon types, but also my expertise around the platforming abilities I’d acquired up to that point. And even with its brutal difficulty, I never once felt a fight to be unfair or unbalanced.

Despite my worries regarding the technical performance when I previewed the PC build earlier, the PlayStation 5 port performed adequately, for the most part. Apart from some graphical animation clips and frame drops, I’ve run into no technical issues during my playthrough. The team also has a Day One patch that directly addresses the aforementioned issues and more!

Valor Mortis takes up a sizable 55.88 gb on the PS5, with support for the console’s Power Saver mode. Unfortunately there is no New Game Plus available at launch and the game only supports 1 save file. There’s also no way to see your in-game playtime but an entire playthrough should land around 20 to 25 hours. There’s both Performance and Quality modes, with the former recommended since it is a fast-paced Soulslike game.

DualSense features include standard adaptive triggers for the different firearms you acquire. Sadly there’s no custom controller rebinding but there are different schemes to choose from. I found the default one good enough for any Soulslike fan, with the R1 and R2 buttons for light and heavy attacks, and Circle for dodge. Unlike most other games in the genre where the game can’t be paused, Valor Mortis can! Load times are also quite fast, taking around 6 seconds from the main menu.

While there aren't traditional difficulty sliders, the game does offer you additional souls currency depending on how far you progressed during a boss fight, even if you die. This means you are actively working towards a level up even if you didn’t succeed! A great quality of life bonus is that your souls will always be placed outside the fog wall and not inside the boss arena where you died. The developers truly know the pain points so brownie points to them for this.

You already know the voice acting is going to be good when you see Vincent Cassel (Black Swan and Westworld) as Napoleon himself, Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring) as the Shrike, and James Alexander (Also Baldur’s Gate 3) as the main protagonist William. The music, along with the narrating cast, naturally blends historical grandeur with cosmic dread. Even the crisp clanks of each parry is just so satisfying to hear.