TL;DR: Valor Mortis is a wild, first-person soulslike with fantastic sword-and-fire combat and a refreshingly odd Napoleonic setting. A thin story and a buggy launch hold it back, but genre veterans craving something new should absolutely keep it on their list, preferably after patches.

 

I’ll be honest: when I first heard the pitch for Valor Mortis, my brain did a little double-take. A soulslike, set in Napoleon’s army, played entirely in first person, with a sword in one hand and fire in the other? That sounds less like a game and more like something cooked up at 3am on a Discord server full of people who’ve finished Elden Ring four times. And yet, here we are, and the strangest part is how much of it actually works. Valor Mortis wears its inspirations openly, borrowing the punishing, die-and-learn structure of Dark Souls and the hands-on, first-person combat feel of BioShock. What surprised me is that the result doesn’t feel like a tribute band playing the hits. It feels like its own weird, slightly unhinged thing, and in a genre absolutely drowning in clones, weird is a very welcome quality. It’s not a smooth ride, though, and we’ll get to the bugs. Oh, we’ll get to the bugs.

One hand for steel, one hand for setting things on fire

The combat is the main event, and it’s the reason I’d tell any soulslike fan to keep this game on their radar. Your left and right hands do different jobs: one swings a blade, the other throws fire. That sounds simple, but it quietly fixes one of my longest-running gripes with the genre. In most soulslikes, magic is a lifestyle choice. You commit to being a wizard, you dump your levels into intelligence, and your sword becomes a decorative accessory. Valor Mortis tells you to stop choosing and just do both, all the time. Fights become this scrappy back-and-forth where you lob fire to soften something up, close in with your cutlass, then back off and do it again. When it’s humming along, it feels fantastic. There’s a very specific joy in carving up a massive, hideous monster with what is essentially a pirate sword, and the game delivers that joy more often than it doesn’t. It’s the kind of combat loop that makes you mutter “okay, one more try” at an hour you’ll regret the next morning.

Why first person changes everything (for better and worse)

Here’s the thing about first-person soulslikes: there’s a reason they’re rare. Souls combat is built on reading tells, on seeing the boss wind up that giant hammer while you watch your own character’s position. Take away the view of your own body and suddenly you’re judging spacing by gut instinct, enemy animations and sound. I found that genuinely thrilling. Standing toe-to-toe with something huge, with the creature filling your entire screen, has an intimacy and dread that a shoulder camera simply can’t replicate. It feels less like a choreographed dance and more like a bar fight with a nightmare. The flip side is that your field of view is narrower, and when things get busy, the camera can work against you. A few encounters that would probably feel clean in third person turn a bit chaotic here. Valor Mortis nails this tricky balancing act more often than I expected, which is honestly impressive given how few games have even tried, but the rough moments stand out precisely because the good ones are so sharp.

A gorgeous, grim world with not much to say

Let’s give credit where it’s due: setting a soulslike in the Napoleonic era is a brilliant idea. I am so tired of crumbling gothic cathedrals and moody medieval castles. Swapping all that for a cursed, decaying take on Napoleon’s army instantly gives Valor Mortis a personality the competition lacks. The world is bleak and genuinely curious, the kind of place where you keep pushing forward because you want to see what grotesque surprise is waiting around the next corner. The story, sadly, doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. It runs almost entirely on vibes, all mood and mystery with very little substance underneath. Now, FromSoftware has spent over a decade teaching us to piece together lore from cryptic item descriptions, so some of you will be perfectly happy here. But a setting this fresh deserved a narrative with more bite, and I left caring a lot more about the atmosphere than about anything that actually happened in it.

Valor Mortis performance: patch it, please, quickly

And now, the bugs. Valor Mortis is out on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and it launches with a lot of bugs and technical issues that need fixing fast. In most genres, a bit of jank is forgivable, sometimes even charming. In a soulslike, it’s a much bigger problem. The entire deal with these games is that when you die, it’s on you. You got greedy, you mistimed a dodge, you rolled into a pit like an absolute amateur. That’s what makes the suffering feel fair, and the eventual victory feel earned. Technical problems break that deal, because now some of your frustration is aimed at the game rather than your own sloppy play. What makes it sting is that the design underneath is clearly strong enough to deserve better. If you’re the type who rage-quits over jank, I’d keep an eye on the patch notes before jumping in.

Who should grab their cutlass

Valor Mortis is for the soulslike veteran who’s played everything, beaten everything, and is quietly bored of the formula. If you’ve been hoping someone would finally shake things up rather than just reskinning Dark Souls for the fortieth time, this is one of the most interesting attempts in years. It’s also a great fit for fans of first-person action who’ve always been curious about soulslikes but never got along with the third-person camera. If you’re mainly here for a gripping story, though, you’ll probably feel a bit short-changed. And if bugs make your eye twitch, the launch version may test your patience more than any boss does. This is a game that asks for some goodwill, and in return offers something you genuinely can’t get anywhere else right now.

Verdict

Valor Mortis is the kind of swing I wish more developers took. Moving the soulslike formula into first person is a risky idea, and for a large chunk of the experience, it works beautifully. The two-handed setup of blade and fire keeps fights aggressive and flexible, facing down giant monsters up close is a genuine thrill, and the cursed Napoleonic setting gives it a look and feel that stands apart from the genre’s usual gothic wallpaper. But it’s far from polished. The story leans so hard on atmosphere that it forgets to give you much to hold onto, the first-person camera occasionally muddies the clarity that good soulslike combat needs, and the launch is weighed down by bugs that chip away at the hard-but-fair promise the genre lives on. For soulslike fans hungry for something genuinely different, I’d still recommend it, ideally once a few patches have landed. Everyone else can wait for a cleaner build and enjoy it all the more for it.