This article reviews Valor Mortis.

Background: One More Level's Opening Handoff From Ghostrunner

Valor Mortis comes from One More Level, the studio known for Ghostrunner, a frenetic parkour-and-sword series. That history shapes the game's first impression, but not in the way a player might expect. The opening presents a more traditional Soulslike surface. William Dowsett, a soldier in Napoleon's Grande Armée, begins the game by pulling his reanimated body out of the mud on a nameless European battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of fallen comrades.

The setting is an alternative-history version of the French Revolutionary War, and the world is powered by a substance called Nephtoglobin. Early on, the game interrupts action so Napoleon's disembodied voice can bellow glories to the Empire directly into the player's mind. Even so, the first-person swordplay follows familiar genre patterns. There are hourglass lanterns instead of bonfires, healing flasks, and Catalysts that function as easily lost currency for levelling and upgrades. If the player dies, those Catalysts must be recovered, creating the usual corpse-run pressure.

A hub world can be revisited whenever the player wants to upgrade. For now, the framework looks like a careful Soulslike: cautious movement, fog-gate-style pacing, melancholy battlefield atmosphere, and early fights that suggest punishing bosses. But the opening rhythm is only the starting point.

Early Hours: A Familiar Soulslike Rhythm in William Dowsett's War

At first, the saber is the only real tool. Combat begins with observation and timed exchanges. The player swings to attack and blocks to reduce incoming damage. A successful follow-up can restore health that was lost during the fight. Some enemies use powerful unblockable attacks, forcing a sidestep rather than a block. When that evasion is timed well, Valor Mortis opens a brief slow-motion window.

Defensive actions drain Endurance, which recovers only after a short pause. Stealthy approaches from behind enable vicious backstabs. In this post-Sekiro landscape, well-timed parries can break an enemy's posture and create an opening for a powerful riposte. The swordplay feels beautifully designed, mixing weight and fluidity, with gruesome endings such as decapitations and cartwheeling limbs after successful encounters.

The novelty holds through a roughly 20-ish hour runtime. The basic thrill of sword combat rarely falters. The game also plays less harshly than its early presentation suggests. It is not exactly easy, but it sits closer to challenging than egregiously punishing, especially once the player understands the early rhythm.

Mid-Game Shift: Guns, Red Plague and the Run-Gun Rhythm

The tone changes when the pistol enters the toolkit. The gun-blade pairing can recall Bloodborne, but Valor Mortis moves much faster. The player can raise the pistol and free-aim without reducing momentum. Headshots are useful, but the more important target is an enemy's glowing Red Plague pustule. Hitting that pustule breaks defences and causes significant damage. The exact location changes with every respawn, so the player cannot rely on memory alone.

Bullets are scarce, so the game does not become a traditional first-person shooter. Instead, it builds a run-gun rhythm. The player can fire a few well-aimed shots while approaching, either to chip away health or interrupt rifle-wielding soldiers, then close the distance for sword combat.

One More Level expands the arsenal gradually. The shotgun deals heavy damage, but its long reload time is dangerous when an enemy is rushing into melee. The two-handed rifle is effective at thinning groups from range, but it leaves the player vulnerable if an enemy closes in.

The starting sabre can be replaced by a rapier. The rapier swaps slower swings for aggressive jabs and becomes especially strong when parrying, causing massive posture damage with each deflection. It cannot block, which makes it risky for uncertain timing, but the parry window feels generous and the benefits are strong enough that it becomes the reviewer's weapon of choice for much of the playtime.

The game adds small consumables as well: grenades, molotovs, and temporary ability boosts. Nephtoglobin-powered magic introduces more options. One transmutation turns the hand into something like a flame thrower, applying burn status to enemies. Another freezes them in stasis. Catalysts fund incremental upgrades, including more health, stronger melee, and new tricks. One unlock allows the player to slow time when drawing the gun while airborne, adding a cinematic layer to the combat.

Enemy design encourages experimentation. Pitchfork-wielding villagers use erratic thrusts. Super-aggressive axemen attack with flurries of unblockable blows. Lanky elite soldiers swing claymores or use rapid dual-wielded sabers, testing parry timing. Once the player learns the combination of headshot, dash-dodge, pustule-pop, and parry-posture-break, the stately Soulslike pacing can dissolve quickly.

Late Structure: Parkour, Metroidvania Routes and Boss Spectacle

The first hint that Valor Mortis is not a conventional Soulslike appears early. William reaches a treacherous gap high on the edge of a ravine and launches himself at a jutting tree branch. He swings with confidence and lands with unexpected finesse. Soon after, he springs down ledges toward the banks of a vast lake at the base of a Nephtoglobin-blasted railway bridge. From there, parkour becomes steadily more pronounced.

The player bounds across platforms, dodges incoming fire while shooting, closes gaps, and leaps from ledges into powerful airborne attacks. Wallrunning and grapple swings are added later, though only at fixed locations. A parkour-point ability lets the player conjure ledges and outcrops with split-second timing to maintain momentum. By then, the game feels as much like a platformer as it does like a Soulslike.

Level design supports that movement. Major locations are separated by loading screens, while individual areas are large and full of circuitous routes. Paths double back to unlock surprise shortcuts in classic Soulslike fashion. The mid-game mine level is a standout, more intricate and richer in ideas than it initially appears.

Other areas include a quarry of searing white geometric shapes, where the player dashes across walkways and precarious beams. There are burning buildings, rooftop-to-ledge leaps, and wheat fields where unseen horrors wait while rain falls and mournful birdsong echoes across the darkening sky. There is even a poison swamp. The world remains beautiful despite its death and decay: lavender fields, cottages, tranquil lakes, pastoral woodland, snow-capped mountains, misty forest trails, felled logs, and hills. The scenery is gorgeous, even when tempered by searing flames and rotting corpses.

Progress is punctuated by set pieces. Some lean toward platform-puzzle movement, while others focus on enemy-heavy fights. Many encounters offer multiple routes around or over patrolling groups, allowing the player to bypass a fight entirely or take a cheeky vantage point. Exploration can reward practical boons, such as a secluded cannon that thins the ranks in a particularly crowded area. Small secrets and off-the-beaten-track side quests keep the largely linear path from feeling too claustrophobic.

There is also a light touch of Metroidvania structure. Many levels include routes blocked until later abilities are unlocked. These routes reveal secrets, including challenging fights against members of Napoleon's Garde Eternale, which reward skill-granting gems.

Bosses are the highlight. They are imaginative and a joy to fight.

Spoiler Warning: the first boss, encountered early, is an army general fused with his battalion. Tortured faces and clasping arms protrude from his lumpen flesh. He still wears the rags of his rank and uses a shredded tricolore for brutal close-up swings, while his saber commands his subordinates into action. Those soldiers peel themselves from his flesh and unload their rifles. The number of bosses is not huge, but One More Level makes them count. One leftfield turn amid swirling sand stands out, and its follow-up is a wonderfully bizarre spectacle: a breathless guitar-chugging parkour-action second half that makes the rest of the game hard to top.

Current Stage: A Momentum-Driven Soulslike at Its Limits

In the latter stages, Valor Mortis begins to show its limits. The action plateaus, inventiveness wanes, and a relatively small selection of enemies returns in slightly new configurations. Some areas feel built from the same old shacks, even when those shacks are artfully disguised inside beautifully constructed environments. The pace can begin to feel predictable.

The story never quite gets off the ground. It has evocative phrasing and strong voice acting from the handful of characters that accompany the journey, but it cannot fully overcome the obviousness of its themes. It moves through familiar “are we the baddies?” and “war is bad” motifs without finding a stronger narrative shape. The game also remains too tied to familiar Soulslike structures, including the upgrade hub. That weight prevents it from fully blossoming into something entirely its own.

Even so, Valor Mortis is a delight. Its fluid foundational combat and cleverly designed enemy encounters would be strong enough on their own. One More Level adds exhilarating parkour, momentum-driven level design, memorable bosses, and a sword-and-gun rhythm that pushes the game beyond the usual Soulslike template. It is not a typical Soulslike, but it is a bloody good time.

A copy of Valor Mortis was provided for the review by Lyrical Games.