We’re on the cusp of a new era of the Soulslike, as more studios start to diverge from trying to follow in FromSoftware’s footsteps. With the likes of Lies of P and Phantom Blade Zero, many games are taking the right elements from Dark Souls, but applying them to wildly new ideas. You can add Valor Mortis to that list, a wild-looking new Soulslike from One More Level, the studio behind the adrenaline-fueled Ghostrunner games. It’s a fascinating grimdark take on a time period that’s long been overlooked by gaming, pitting you against the mutated forces of Napoleon Bonaparte. And while Valor Mortis is being called a Soulslike, director Radoslaw Ratusznik is quick to clarify that it’s still the kind of high-speed action game the studio specializes in, tinged with Souls elements.
“People can be easily connected with the Soulslike genre. But we’re not blindly copying everything the Soulslike is doing, right? It's more like taking some crucial elements that fits into our direction, into our vision for this game, to make something unique,” Ratusznik tells Inverse, “If you've played Ghostrunner you know it's a mix of things — a mix of mechanics that players recognize from different titles. But when you are doing this combination, it feels refreshing. [In Valor Mortis] the shooting changed a lot the approach to the enemies.”
