Making a drastic departure from their previous work, Valor Mortis is a testament to the gameplay potential of the genre.

Out of all the games I’ve played so far this year, few have had me as emotionally invested in their worldbuilding and gameplay loop as One More Level’s Valor Mortis. Having loved the team’s Ghostrunner games, I had high hopes for Valor Mortis, but those expectations were blown away by the grim spectacle and how the in-depth Soulslike gameplay mechanics intertwined with its haunting narrative.

While I was a little skeptical about how much could be done within the confines of its alternative take on 19th-century Europe compared to an expansive sci-fi universe, Valor Mortis takes full advantage of the fresh setting to create one of the most unique Soulslikes I’ve had the pleasure of playing, which doesn’t overstay its welcome as a relatively short, single-player narrative.

From the moment I started up Valor Mortis, it was obvious I was in for a treat thanks to an introduction that perfectly sets the tone for what to expect from the rest of the experience.

Playing as the loyal soldier William Dowsett, who awakens in a field of corpses with a chunk of his memory missing, the core story of Valor Mortis revolves around trying to reconnect with your lost forces and uncover the mysteries behind the brutal war tearing across the country.

While I initially had several problems with performance drops or stuttering in some areas, the pre-launch updates and game-specific Graphics Drivers seemed to fix a vast majority of these issues.

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