Developer One More Level is proficient in making gameplay feel smoother than a stick of yellow butter, as it exemplified with cult hit action platformer Ghostrunner in 2020, but I wasn't convinced I'd be interested in its upcoming title Valor Mortis during Summer Game Fest 2026, when I first had the chance to try the demo now available during Steam Next Fest. But Valor Mortis' first-person Soulslike combat is so slick, even more silky than a vat of canola oil, the historical horror game easily convinced me to become another one of its loyal zombie soldiers.
I awake on the battlefield in reddish mud, tinted with the blood seemingly oozing from my arm until Napoleon Bonaparte himself commands me to stand, and my wounds miraculously disappear. At this point I think, Who does this Napoleon guy think he is, reanimating me like that… but Valor Mortis is a game about supernatural warfare in an alternate version of 19th century France, so I go with it. Napoleon better have a freshly torched crème brûlée waiting for me if he's going to wake me up from my eternal slumber, just to serve his selfish goal of building an army that cannot die.
