Valor Mortis shows a lot of promise, despite a very rough start

The Ghostrunner devs' new Soulslike could stand to play it a bit less safe.

Valor Mortis makes a rough first impression. Ghostrunner developer One More Level released a demo of the upcoming first-person Soulslike after showing it off during the Xbox Games Showcase, and it comes in two parts. The first covers a chunk of the game's start and left me more than a little underwhelmed. The second, which takes place roughly midway through the game, reversed my opinion and made me eager for the full release.

Vive L'Empereur

Valor Mortis drops you into 1817 France in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars. You're a soldier named William. All your comrades are dead, some of them have come back to life as weird blood-magic zombies, and Emperor Napoleon's nowhere to be seen. You can hear him though. He's a bit like a grumpy French Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077, occasionally dropping in to spout some wisdom or point you in the right direction. Unlike Johnny, though, Napoleon isn't really saying anything of substance. It's mostly platitudes about devotion to cause and country, but without knowing much about William or why he's fighting — or even the state of the country, other than "at war" and "full of zombies" — these comments are rather empty.

Napoleonic France works as a novelty setting, but in this part anyway, there's very little to justify it from a narrative perspective. What's happening could take place in any country during any war, or even just in a fantasy setting, for that matter. Lies of P, another French-inspired Soulslike, at least does something with its setting.

Dim light on a familiar path

Valor Mortis almost goes overboard throwing all the usual Soulslike things at you in the first 10 minutes. You've got:

• Light and strong attacks
• Parrying
• Dodges that rely on a stamina meter
• Enemy leftovers that you collect and use to level up and consumables containing fixed amount of said leftovers
• Lamps you light that turn into rest points where you level up, and resting resets enemies
• A ranged weapon and fire magic you launch from your hand, a la Dark Souls 3

The warzone that forms this first chapter's setting is mostly linear, with a handful of enemies — just enough to feel threatening, but not enough to force strategizing — that show up in predictable locations, and the final boss, of course, has two health bars. I'm a firm believer that games don't have to innovate to be good, but this first chapter tested my resolve.

A more promising future

After the boss fight, I swapped over to chapter seven. It's called Witch Hunt, and things immediately take a more interesting turn. Napoleon's mad about propaganda littering a nearby village, and the ghost of a memory surfaces, showing you children planning to blow up some infrastructure for "the Shrike," whom Napoleon doesn't like and who I assume is the witch in question. There's another voice in William's head now, too. Getting a bit crowded in there.

None of this makes use of the setting. But it does, at least, have more momentum than Napoleon's endless string of encouragements and William's perpetual bafflement over his zombified soldier friends acting oddly.

The stage itself is more interesting as well. Gone are the linear corridors, and in theire place are huge gaps you traverse by wall-running or making a big jump and hoping you timed it right. I even got turned around once and lost my way, a very welcome small piece of friction after the overly straightforward beginning. Enemy placement is much less predictable here, and even when you enter a spot that screams "there's an ambush here!" the variety of foes and how they behave make encounters feel more dangerous.

William's arsenal has expanded in this chapter. His fire-spitting hand can cast a shield spell too, which absorbs all damage — something that standard blocking can't do — and releases a magic shockwave when you end the spell. You get a rapier instead of a standard one-handed sword, which is suited for faster combat at the expense of defense. And there's a big, clunky musket that's slower than the pistol you start with, but much more powerful. Just these small additions made combat more varied and exciting, and I was pleased to see the weapon wheel had slots for four more abilities, too.

There's a wider selection of augmentations to change your combat style at this point. When you level up enough times, you unlock slots for little amulets that add a new feature to how you fight. The first chapter briefly introduces the concept, though there's not enough time to do much with it (and the starting amulet is quite basic). Here, though, the selection ranged from amulets that encourage more aggressive playstyles to ones that removed your ability to heal and, instead, made your restoratives refill your magic gauge instead. 

William's skill tree also seems quite useful. The upgrades are fairly basic — things like more stamina, parrying more efficiently, the usual basic action-RPG upgrades. However, you don't have equipment at all, so this skill tree is your build. That, plus the long gaps between when you level up, mean your skill tree choices are more important than in those standard action-RPGs.

After a few hours with Valor Mortis, I'm keen to see what One More Level is doing here. The story became intriguing enough to catch my interest, despite the fairly shallow setting, and the controlled-but-flexible approach to how you build William is teasing a lot more depth than you originally see. The opening segment could certainly stand to play it less safe, but I'm locked in to the end now — or will be, later this fall.

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