Summary
2023 ended up being a banner year for Soulslikes made by non-FromSoftware studios. One of the more anticipated of the year’s genre entries wasLords of the Fallen, the semi-sequel/reboot to the early Soulslike of the same name from 2014. While it was somewhat overshadowed by the release and reception ofLies of P,Lords of the Fallencontinues to build a cult-following in the wake of its launch, with the developer even recently revealing that there are plans for a sequel. One aspect that helps to setLords of the Fallenapart from its contemporaries is the frequency and speed at which its developer, Hexworks, is updating the game.
While just about every Soulsborne game and Soulslike has historically received plenty of updates that work toward rebalancing the game, making hotfixes, or even shifting the meta,Lords of the Fallen’s updatesare much more akin to that of a live-service game, despite the title not actually falling into the live-service category. Hexworks even called its recent holiday-themed update a “season”, a term typically reserved for the monetized content drops of a live-service title. While the updates toLords of the Fallenhave had a cumulatively positive effect, there are still some mixed results that arise from the game’s frequent updates and patches.
How Lords of the Fallen’s Updates Both Help and Hurt the Game
A quick look atLords of the Fallen’s patch history on Steam reveals that, since launch, the title has received more than 25 full patches, updates, and hotfixes. The most recent of these is the 1.1.414 patch, which continues the work of the developer on eliminating various bugs, cleaning up performance, and making variouschanges toLords of the Fallen’s overall balance. One of the primary sticking points many players had at launch was that the game struggled to maintain its promised 60 FPS, even in performance mode. After a slew of updates, this issue still persists in the most recent build of the game.
Further, one of the unintentional effects of the frequent updates andpatches toLords of the Fallenare the ways in which they act as a bit of “two steps forward, one step back” for the game’s balancing, performance, and meta. Certain strange bugs are still common when loading up the most recent build of the game, such as enemies clipping into walls or foes failing to even load onto a map after spawning at a Vestige. To be sure, these are minor issues that will likely be resolved in a future update, but it’s led to a bit of fan perception that a new hotfix forLords of the Fallenwill inevitably resolve some issues while creating others.
Hexworks has been clear about its intentions to continue improving the game, even going so far as to provide players with aroadmap forLords of the Fallenoutlining the features and fixes that are coming to the game in the near future. The existence of a roadmap and the labeling of certain holiday-themed updates as “seasons” gives off the impression that Hexworks intends to treatLords of the Fallenas if it were a live-service, which is untread territory for Soulslikes. Even with the mixed bag that the approach has resulted in so far, there’s potential forLords of the Fallen’s frequent updates to set an interesting precedent.
Patches and hotfixes to games are practically a guarantee, and even the highest-profile games are subject to needing regular updates that improve their performance and add-in requested features.Elden Ringis one of the most successful Soulsborne gamesof all-time, and it was even subject to several patches that worked toward rebalancing boss encounters, changing the meta for certain build types, or generally improving the game’s performance and removing the propensity of bugs and crashes.Lords of the Fallenseems to be charting a bit of new territory in how it’s approaching updates to the core gameplay, and it’ll be interesting to see how both it and its recently revealed sequel fare as a result.
Lords of the Fallen
WHERE TO PLAY
An epic, dark fantasy action-RPG set in a vast world of shadow and chaos.Overthrow a resurrected demon god in this all-new adventure set in an interconnected world five times larger than the original game.In Lords of the Fallen, you play as one of the fabled Dark Crusaders, who must journey through the realms of the living and the dead to disrupt the reign of Adyr, a cruel tyrant who has ushered in a new age of devastation for humanity.Along the way, you’ll endure colossal boss battles and get to grips with a fast and challenging combat system. With nine character classes and hundreds of weapons to choose from, you’ll customize your hero and develop your own play style as you set out to defy the gods. Will your legend be one of light… or one of darkness?
