Preview: Lords of The Fallen's Makes Death Meaningful In Its Spin On The Soulslike Formula

mmorpg.com:

The first time I died in Hexworks' Lords of the Fallen reboot during a preview event last month, I immediately got discouraged, expecting to have to retrace my progress like in other Soulslike games. Instead, my character was taken to Umbral, a parallel world of the dead, where I would find myself trying to escape back to the overworld of Axiom.

This mechanic reinvigorated me. I knew about Umbral going into this preview. Still, my brief experiences playing Soulslike games taught me that death was inevitable and that retracing my footsteps was just another part of the journey. Admittedly, this is one reason I don't necessarily play Soulslikes, apart from being generally bad at them, but the Umbral mechanic in Lords of the Fallen might change that.

While some might decry this as making Lords of the Fallen easier or that death doesn't have meaning, that couldn't be farther from the truth. 

Lords of the Fallen is the franchise's reboot by Hexworks and CI Games and is slated to launch in October. While it’s clearly inspired by both its predecessors, improving on them meaningfully, it also hearkens back to the Dark Souls games that inspired the franchise. 

The most creative aspect of the reboot is this Umbral world — a parallel universe that runs alongside the main overworld of Axiom. This is the realm of the dead, and it’s just another path players will take to save Axiom from Adyr, the demon god, who is being resurrected after decades of war between those who follow him and the Church of Orius. 

It’s a dark, grim world that also has its own ethereal beauty. While much of the screen space is taken up by the character’s immediate surroundings, there are times when grand vistas of the world of Axiom dominate the screen,