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After a couple of smaller indie games, Polish studio One More Level made a splash in 2020 with the first Ghostrunner, which not only nailed a glistening cyberpunk art style at a time when people were still salivating over Cyberpunk 2077, but also managed to pull off what few other studios can manage: precision-oriented and rewarding first-person melee combat.
So the fact that the studio’s newly announced Valor Mortis is a “single-player first-person soulslike game” doesn’t alarm me as much as it might if another studio had the moxie to try to pull that off. Not only that, but the setting is fascinating: Valor Mortis is set during the Napoleonic Wars, specifically in Eastern Europe.
But this is no grey 19th century period piece, because there’s a lot of weird stuff going on. Some substance called Nephtoglobin is doing the rounds, which confers great power to whoever consumes it, but also—and this is the bad part—turns them into demonic monstrosities. Our hero William is a reanimated French soldier who has partaken of this alternate history jungle juice, and is thus capable of some pretty amazing feats in combat.
Judging by the trailer above, Valor Mortis is definitely playing to the studio’s strengths while expanding its first-person action template. In addition to melee weapons there’s ranged combat, dual-wielding, and Transmutations, which are special abilities deriving from William’s Nephtoglobin powers. Most excitingly, the Soulslike influence extends beyond a deliberate, precision-oriented take on combat: in an accompanying release the studio promises “Metroidvania-inspired levels”.
Valor Mortis is scheduled to hit PC and consoles in 2026, with a closed playtest scheduled for “the weeks following Gamescom” (you can sign up for that here). It’ll be published by Lyrical Games, a new indie publisher recently spawned from a movie production company, and featuring former talent from Private Division and Devolver.