Valor Mortis early impressions — A gruesome and challenging first-person Soulslike

Valor Mortis is running its first playtest, and I was lucky to have been invited to try the game out early and see what it’s all about. We gave it our Best Gamescom 2025 Announcement award this summer, and were thus excited to see more. And we certainly aren’t disappointed.

Hopping into this pre-alpha build of the game, I didn’t really know what to expect. Most of my excitement came from its stunning visuals and art direction, though its advertised Soulslike vibes piqued my interest as well. Yes, yes, I’ve written about Soulslike fatigue and all that, and I stand by what I said, but I still believe the formula can be improved, expanded, and upgraded, which Valor Mortis is certainly trying to do.

Transporting the perspective from the traditional third-person or side-scroller, Valor Mortis puts you in medias res from the first-person, fighting gruesome undead and corrupted Napoleonic soldiers in the aftermath of massive early 19th-century battles. You yourself are a soldier who perished during one encounter, thrown into a mass grave with many others.

But you were saved by a strange presence and a substance stranger still, which instills you with great powers, and corrupts the world around you.

The game unfolds much like a traditional Soulslike: parries, dodges, and stamina management are key in each fight; bonfires act as checkpoints in disguise; mini-bosses and items reward exploration; and a final boss marks the end of a stage. It’s all very recognizable, but Valor Mortis‘ perspective shift adds a lot of depth to the overall combat and has you experience the horrifying nature of war from up close.

Leveling comes from picking up Souls, which are then spent at Bonfires. Healing is essentially an Estus Flask, of which you gain extra charges via gameplay and refill them at Bonfires. The Dark Souls influence is immense here, which is by no means a bad thing.

Enemies are varied, from melee to ranged and from human-looking to outright Lovecraftian. Each fight plays out rather differently, and the game forces you to think on your feet and choose to either parry or dodge, whichever is more beneficial in any given fight. Naturally, you can do either all the time, but adapting seems to be the name of the game here.

The preview build is rather short and doesn’t give off all the nuances of the game’s combat, but it does betray a smart and crafty system that is rather satisfying when it clicks. I will note a lot of floatiness in the movement, both of the player and the enemies, though much more in the latter.

Enemies sometimes just outright teleport your way, lunging in their attacks far more than they seem like they should, but I’ll relegate that to pre-alpha bugs and lack of polish rather than core issues with the game.

It’s also rather difficult, because that first-person perspective significantly changes how everything unfolds, meaning the game takes a little while longer to get used to compared to the average Souls game. However, when things start clicking and you finally overcome your fear of approaching enemies, even if they’re four times your size, the combat becomes incredibly satisfying and fun.

Other than the interesting take on combat via first-person gameplay, Valor Mortis certainly stands out the most with its visuals, both in terms of graphics, art direction, and enemy design.

All three are near-perfect, with the game performing well while running at satisfactory framerates, all while ray tracing is turned on. I didn’t experience many hitches or problems, and definitely not during active combat. The art direction, drawing from late-18th and early-19th century Napoleonic aesthetics, is downright perfect for the Gothic horror vibes, which, mixed with Eldritch beings, Lovecraftian body horror, and a bit of Resident Evil‘s DNA, produces an amazing result.

It achieves the atmosphere, feel, and uneasiness it’s striving for, while that first-person perspective, as I’ve noted above, brings you closer to the terror unfolding on the battlefield.

Though brief, the demo really has me excited about the full release of the game, which should be sometime in 2026. If the floaty bits are polished off, we’re standing to get one of the best Soulslike experiences in recent memory, and I cannot wait to see more.

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