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Metareview: Lords of the Fallen

It appears reviewers do not take the same masochistic pleasure from Lords of the Fallen as they did from similar games like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Critical reception to the game veered mostly toward the lower end of the acceptable spectrum, with reviews noting Lords of the Fallen was a little close to its source material and didn't move the self-flagellation genre forward.

Our own review said that "when Lords of the Fallen stops providing the challenge, its other objective flaws are highlighted."


  • Game Informer (85/100): "From giant, seemingly insurmountable shields to ghosts and mages, every foe is sure to cause a pleasurable headache of some kind. That said, by game's end the enemy variety gets a little stale."

  • IGN (74/100): "This balance issue carries over to the bosses. Lords of the Fallen boasts a couple of battles that forced me to think out strategies for victory, but I managed to kill four other bosses on the first try by simply wailing on them with a big sword and my warrior's Quake spell while blocking and swigging a potion when needed. "

  • Eurogamer (70/100): "I just wish it wasn't so happy to sit in another game's shadow, and made more of the few fresh mechanisms that might distinguish it and move the genre forwards. Instead, it hews so closely to a proven template that it's basically a pretty good action-adventure by default. "

  • PC Gamer (58/100): "It's less interesting than Dark Souls in terms of plot and setting, and full of wandering and grinding that first tested my patience, and finally made me as powerful as some of the bosses. If I could take its combat system, weapons, and enemies and put it all in another more interesting game, I would."

  • Slant (2.5/5): "Any game as demanding as Lords of the Fallen needs to be equally precise in execution, and yet it often stumbles on the simplest things. ... And ultimately, that's Lords of the Fallen in a nutshell: Because this 20-hour grind has only roughly 10 hours of uneven content, it just isn't worth it."

[Image: Namco Bandai]