"Heavy metal soulslike" Lords of the Fallen 2 is a "declaration of war"

Lords of the Fallen 2023 didn't have the strongest start. Even its own developers will admit that. David Valjalo, creative portfolio strategist at CI Games, told us at Gamescom that its launch was "rocky" with "some technical hiccups," but he assures us that the team has learned from the experience. "We've gone above and beyond in delivering on what we initially promised," he says. The game has received over 50 patches since launch, culminating in version 2.0, which released this summer. However, CI Games wants to get out of the blocks quicker with Lords of the Fallen 2.

The developer is doing so thanks to a "players first philosophy," Valjalo says, which involves listening to fan sentiment on social media and feeding that into the game. Lords of the Fallen 2 can't take on board every piece of advice from every player, but instead aggregates it to see what the community as a whole finds important. "Our fans are very vocal about what they want in the next game," he says.

Valjalo believes that trust and maturity are key to working with the Lords of the Fallen fanbase like this. "CI Games is still the captain of the ship," he says. "We're still wanting to make the game we want to make. We just want people along with us giving us advice, guidance, steering." If Lords of the Fallen 2 is going to surpass its predecessor and become one of the best soulslike games, it will need to balance that fan feedback with developer intention.

It's worth noting that some of this feedback has taken the form of more questionable polls, such as one including stereotypes about binary gender. CEO Marek Tyminski quoted the same player-first philosophy when announcing his decision to implement these changes. CI Games also cited the inclusion of "social or political agendas" in modern videogames as a possible reason for "a number of high-profile releases underperforming," suggesting that they minimize player enjoyment.

You won't see all of the studio's decision-making on X, however. Valjalo details some of the team's creative process, saying "one of the mantras we have internally is that we make heavy metal soulslikes." A part of that involves applying the Metallica logo to screenshots from in-progress builds. If it looks like it could be a legitimate Metallica album, then it passes. "That's genuinely one of the litmus tests."

But it's not just this superficial layer that is heavy metal. Lords of the Fallen 2 is "quite Old Testament; it's fire and brimstone," Valjalo explains. "This sequel is darker, tonally."

If you couldn't tell from the biblical trailer, Lords of the Fallen is drawing a line in the sand. The first game was muddled, the lore and worldbuilding were convoluted, but the developers worked hard to shape it into the game fans were promised. CI Games feels it knows what it's doing now, and it also believes it knows what fans want this series to be.

"[Lords of the Fallen 2 has] got more personality," Valjalo says. "It's a bit more dangerous. That's both us making a declaration of war and being really confident in it."

If you're looking forward to Lords of the Fallen 2's biblical brimfire, why not try out another of the best action games from our handpicked list? With the sequel set to land in 2026, that gives you plenty of time to upgrade to one of the best gaming monitors, too, so you can punch the gods with more frames per second than should be allowed.

What do you make of Lords of the Fallen 2's heavy metal approach to soulslikes? Drop by our community Discord server to discuss.

Additional reporting from Gamescom by Lauren Bergin.