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Developer HexWorks and publisher CI Games are quite aware that its upcoming Soulslike game, Lords of The Fallen, has a lot of similarities to From Software’s acclaimed Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. A recent interview with the team has given us a bit more insight into how these similarities stack up – particularly for Elden Ring – and what the expectations should be for players.
Lords of The Fallen is billed as a reboot or reimagining of the 2014 game of the same name, though it’s doing a few things differently. Namely, the game will feature an impressive “Dual Worlds” feature that will allow players to seamlessly travel between two mirror dimensions simultaneously using a special lantern. While HexWorks is certainly trying to put its own spin on the formula, the company believes that the game has enough unique content on offer.
During an interview with MP1st, HexWorks head of the studio Saul Gascon and Creative Director Cezar Virtosu were asked if Elden Ring impacted the game’s development, to which they responded “yes and no”, stating:
“What I meant is that Elden Ring caught us by surprise. We were expecting something great, not something groundbreaking. Nobody expected that sort, and it came late in our development, so we had to stick with our guns. Because the way we do business is that we lock gameplay metrics on placeholder assets early on, and from there we just do tweaks as we create art. This is our way to cut on the iteration time and create AAA in 3.5 years.”
Further elaborating on that point, Virtosu stated that there are definitely some overlapping improvements from Elden Ring that gave the studio some confidence. “For instance, the crafted tankers, the vestiges, we thought we were giving the players a bit too much with manual saves,” said the director. “But then we saw Elden Ring doing the Stakes of Marika and we’re like, alright, we’re good. We were very concerned that we were doing too much accessibility.”
The creative duo also spoke about making Lords of The Fallen visually distinct with different colour palettes and tones that were changed when something looked like Elden Ring. According to the studio’s playtesters, they also appreciated that the game isn’t open-world as the world’s levels and areas are designed to be interconnected but not as imposing as a gigantic map. Thankfully, players will be able to hop into each other’s worlds with friends in seamless co-op.
Lords of the Fallen launches on 13 October 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Editor-in-Chief of Nexus Hub, writer at GLITCHED. Former writer at The Gaming Report and All Otaku Online. RPG addict that has wonderful nightmares of Bloodborne 2.
