I remember liking 2014 dark fantasy action RPG Lords of the Fallen, but it turns out I gave it a 58% in my review. I guess I didn't like it that much, but for reasons I can't entirely explain, I'm excited for its sequel, which until today was called Lords of the Fallen 2.
As of Gamescom Opening Night Live, however, Lords of the Fallen 2 is now called "The Lords of the Fallen." On Steam, the original is now called Lords Of The Fallen 2014 to make it clear that it's the old game, if the word "the" was somehow not enough of an indication that there are two different Lords of the Fallen games.
Like all good dark fantasy games, the Lords of the Fallen trailer at Gamescom—sorry, the The Lords of the Fallen trailer—includes an '80s heavy metal song. This one features Mother by Danzig. Groans were expressed in our work chat when it started playing. To myself, quietly—even though I'm alone in my apartment—I said "nice."
I really can't explain this, but I'm going to play The Lords of the Fallen, and I'll probably play it before I finish Elden Ring. I know it won't be as good, but no one can stop me from doing this. It reminds me of when that HBO show Rome was popular. I told one of my friends to watch it, but he was so tired of people telling him that Rome was good that he refused. (I have no idea if I think it would be good now. Maybe he made the right call.) That's me with FromSoftware games. There's no good reason that I've played and reviewed Lords of the Fallen but never got into the Dark Souls games.
It's preposterous—almost as preposterous as changing Lords of the Fallen 2 to The Lords of the Fallen. Maybe we're alike, somehow, me and Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games, which founded a new studio called HexWorks to make this sequel (the original was developed by Deck13).
"The first game that we are proudly developing is Lord of the Fallen 2," HexWorks wrote before the name change. "This sequel will shift from the original's power fantasy to a dark fantasy world and it will also have more challenging combat than its predecessor, staying truer to experiences that the Soulsborne communities enjoy. This combat will be paired with amazing visuals and gameplay supported by the power and performance of the latest Unreal Engine as we target next generation console platforms and high-end PCs."
The Lords of the Fallen now has a Steam page, and will be out sometime next year.
Catch up with our full list of Gamescom announcements from Opening Night Live and check our Gamescom schedule to find out when to watch everything else.
