Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the closest things history has had to a Soulslike protagonist.

After suffering defeat in the War of the Sixth Coalition, the French emperor survived a suicide attempt and was exiled to Elba off the coast of Italy in 1814. Napoleon balked at this forced seclusion and, much like the Chosen Undead resurrecting at a bonfire, marshaled his forces less than a year later to once again seize absolute power in France and threaten the rest of Europe with his aspirations of conquest.

It’s this imposing personality that serves as the foundation of Valor Mortis, a first-person Soulslike heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 13. After shipping the cyberpunk parkour slasher series Ghostrunner, Polish studio One More Level, which managed its own bonfire revival after Take-Two backed out of a publishing deal with it in 2024, is changing things up. A futuristic setting and wall bouncing have been abandoned for a game that instead imagines an alternate history where Napoleon not only won the Battle of Waterloo after returning from Elba but continued to expand his empire with the help of a mysterious substance known as Nephtoglobin that paves the way for the game’s supernatural abilities.

Somewhere between 12 and 15 hours to reach the credits is the best estimate. My console dashboard says I only played for 20 minutes and there’s no way that’s right. Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.

Valor Mortis follows William Dowsett, a British volunteer in Napoleon’s Grande Armée, as he navigates a Europe decimated by the emperor’s ambitions.

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