If you were to tell me the studio behind the Ghostrunner series of games was working on a first-person Soulslike set in Napoleonic Europe, I would not know what to think, but here we are with Valor Mortis, and it is a surprisingly interesting game, even if the concept sounds a bit out of left field. Set in an alternate 19th-century history universe where the Napoleonic army got access to a strange liquid that keeps its soldiers from dying, there is only one small issue: it does some crazy things to many of the soldiers and brings an even worse plague across Europe than the war itself, one that will not stay dead.
It is a strong concept, and I have to admit, I did not know what to think of Valor Mortis when I first sat down to play the demo. The concept is strange, and even the idea of playing a first-person Soulsborne game can be a bit jarring, but once you sit down and dive into the experience, it clicks, and it is interesting. You play as William, a soldier of the Eternal Guard, as you wake on a battlefield littered with the bodies of your fallen comrades. The only problem is that the dead are not staying dead.
Valor Mortis wastes no time ramping up the action. Within minutes after you wake up from what seems like your own death, you are already tasked with taking down the various mindless soldiers who have woken up along the battlefield. With Napoleon himself as a voice in your head, voiced by none other than Vincent Cassel, known for his work on Black Swan and The White Lotus, you venture forth, cutting down soldiers who look to stand in your way.
It is an incredibly grim setting, and from the moment I started the demo, I could feel the sense of bleak hopelessness that permeates the world around you. It is hard not to feel hopeless when you have piles of corpses, mud, scattered ammunition and nothing in the realm of a friendly face in all of the carnage.
Combat in Valor Mortis is more akin to a Dark Souls or Bloodborne game than the average shooter you would pick up. Even though it is first-person, everything you do in the game feels incredibly visceral and intense for your character, and that is part of what makes it so interesting. Combat works with a dual-wield structure, with your sword in the right hand and a revolver or magic in the left. Players must choose which secondary tool to carry at any given moment. Much like any third-person Soulslike-style game, light attacks, heavy attacks, parrying and dodging form the foundation of how the gameplay works.
This forces you to treat every battle you encounter as a potential challenge, and you need to keep your wits about you as you dive into taking on any enemy. Watching an enemy attack is key, with dodging, blocking and parrying being how you can take down larger groups or more challenging enemies. The posture meter depletes when you land parries, which eventually breaks an enemy open for a powerful critical finisher. And while it may sound like a lot, you very quickly get the lay of the land.
But here is the thing: unlike many shooters, Valor Mortis is very much more about how you take on battles in the game and less about just outgunning the opposition. Blocking or taking a hit does not mean it is final. Landing attacks after the fact can claw some of that health back, so it is about how you take on the things that get you, rather than just who shoots first, and this makes it incredibly exhilarating as you play.
“Valor Mortis wastes no time ramping up the action.”
You will strive to get that one last parry or strike back to try to get one more chance at walking away alive. I was unsure how the first-person perspective would work for a game like this, and despite some getting used to it, I felt it did a great job of plunging you into the dark world and giving you a sense of what this character is going through.
Beyond how visceral the combat is, Valor Mortis is structured very much like many Soulslike games that have come out in the past few years. The Lanterns serve as the game’s bonfire equivalent: resting refills healing vials and Nephtoglobin, the resource fuelling magic, but respawns all enemies. It is the typical risk-reward that is at the core of many of these games, and it is what people find so exhilarating about them. And I am happy to report, it works well here. The placements feel fair, giving you enough challenge without making each section feel like a slog, and the recharging of your resources is often well worth needing to fight through a new wave of risen soldiers.
Much like other Soulslike games, players can spend upgrade currency at lanterns. Upgrades range from core stat boosts, including more health, stamina efficiency and posture damage on parry, to high-risk, high-reward trade-offs that reshape how you play. Checkpoint placement was noted as generous in the demo, including one lantern placed directly before a boss door, a design choice that softens some of the runback frustration the genre is known for.
And most importantly, as any Soulslike lover will note, death drops your experience at the point of defeat. You have one shot to recover it before it is gone, and that race to your life is just as challenging and rewarding as you can expect from a game like this.
With only around 30 minutes in the game, the enemy variety was a bit limited, but I love what One More Level has done with twisting the human form into different concepts. I never would have thought of how many ways a Napoleonic soldier could be warped and twisted, but this demo has shown me some truly diabolical ways, and I have only just gotten started on my journey. You will quickly learn the attack patterns of the various creatures, with their moves telegraphed visually, making it possible to parry, dodge or duck out of the way. So long as you are aware, Valor Mortis makes each fight relatively fair.
There is a lot about the game I did not get to sink my teeth into, but there are also a lot of strong concepts and a truly unique setting. Valor Mortis is brutal, grotesque and incredibly hard, but also just as rewarding and fun to tackle with all the challenges possible in the game. Slated to launch on PS5, XBOX Series X|S and Steam on October 13, 2026, I am eager to see what else this game has to offer, and what is really going on with its unique setting and godforsaken battlefield. I never would have thought Napoleonic Europe was the ideal setting for a Soulslike, but Valor Mortis has convinced me. October cannot come soon enough.
