Valor Mortis Launched This Week. It's a Soulslike Where You Parry Muskets.
Valor Mortis launched October 13 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it's on Xbox Game Pass from day one. It's a first-person Soulslike from One More Level, the studio behind Ghostrunner, published by Lyrical Games, and it's the studio's first wholly owned IP.
The game is set in an alternate-history version of the Napoleonic Wars, with a plague sweeping the continent. You play William Dowsett, an Englishman who volunteered for Napoleon's Grande Armee and is pulled back from a battlefield grave carrying the plague's corrupting power. Former comrades have become plague-ridden monsters. Vincent Cassel voices Napoleon, who speaks to William through a mysterious bond. James Alexander voices William, and Jennifer English plays the Shrike, a rebel leader fighting Napoleon's empire.
Combat is stamina-based and built around parrying, with a posture system that rewards well-timed parries, plus dashing and finishing moves. William switches between weapons including rapiers, a claymore, a flintlock pistol, and a two-handed musket. In his left hand, he wields supernatural transmutations: fire, which sets enemies burning; shield, which absorbs damage and releases a shockwave; and grapple, which helps him traverse the environment.
The standard edition is $39.99. The Deluxe Edition is $59.99 and adds a major story DLC coming next year plus cosmetic packs. A New Game+ mode is planned for Q4, letting players run the game again with tougher enemies while keeping loot and progression. Early reception has been generally favorable, with a 78 on Metacritic and a 7.7 user score, and early completion estimates put the game around 15 to 25 hours.
The take
The buy question is the interesting one here, because Game Pass changes the math completely. A huge chunk of the audience will never pay $39.99 for this, and that's the point of a day-one Game Pass launch. The real decision is the Deluxe Edition: $20 extra for a story DLC that lands next year plus skins. If you're on Game Pass, the question basically becomes whether you pay $20 for future DLC sight unseen. If you're not on Game Pass, $39.99 for a Soulslike this confident, from a studio trying the genre for the first time, is a fair ask.
So who's buying, and who isn't?