I Haven’t Cared About Soulslikes Since Sekiro — Valor Mortis Just Changed That

Why Valor Mortis Actually Got My Blood Pumping

I thought I was done with soulslikes. After Sekiro, most entries felt like remix packs-parry, roll, punish, repeat. Then One More Level (the Ghostrunner studio) brought Valor Mortis to Gamescom 2025 and hit me with a combo I didn’t expect: saber-and-flintlock melee, shooter-level gunplay, and parkour that actually matters, all drenched in an alt-19th-century war nightmare where Napoleon literally whispers in your head. It’s a hell of a pitch-and, based on my hands-on, more than just a pitch.

Key Takeaways

• Ghostrunner-style traversal gives encounters multiple routes and rhythms, not just “roll and poke.”
• Hybrid combat (saber, flintlock, fire magic) plays like an action game first, a traditional soulslike second.
• Alt-Napoleonic setting isn’t just window dressing-bosses and abilities lean into the era’s brutality.
• Difficulty hits hard, but phase-based bosses reward smart use of tools, not just perfect parries.

What Makes Valor Mortis Different

You play as William, a resurrected soldier from Napoleon’s Grande Armée, clawing through a world where endless war has twisted both land and flesh. It’s grotesque, yes, but it’s more than shock value. Dismemberment is reactive and purposeful—limbs fly, blood sprays, and combat reads cleanly in the chaos. When a dev tells you to “go a little psycho” on a downed enemy to show off the dismemberment model, you expect a gimmick. In practice, that visceral feedback reinforces positioning and timing in a way most soulslikes ignore.

The bigger shift is traversal. I shot down a tree to create a risky path, then chain-swinged branches into a canyon. Later, I spotted a sniper and had choices: pick him off with the flintlock, or drop a nearby cart to climb up and brawl him on the rooftop—bonus points for squishing his buddy below. This isn’t Souls’ “tight corridor with a side alley.” It’s encounter design that respects momentum, like Ghostrunner, but with the weight of a blade and the spacing mind game of a soulslike.

Guns, Steel, and Sorcery—A Combat Loop With Layers

Soulslikes with guns usually relegate firearms to stagger windows (hello, Bloodborne). Valor Mortis treats the flintlock like a real tool—aim, snap, delete threats—without turning into a shooter. Add in your flame-spewing hand and suddenly you’re juggling ranges and elements: burn environmental growths to open routes, tag weak points on bosses, or use fire to control space while you reposition. The saber still anchors the rhythm with quicks, heavies, and parries, but your off-hand changes the conversation every few seconds. The result feels closer to character-action DNA than FromSoftware’s measured dueling, and that’s a compliment.

The demo’s capstone, General Lothaire—a hulking mass stitched from his fallen comrades—drove it home. Shootable growths encourage precision, phase changes punish tunnel vision, and the fight rewarded mixing parkour escapes with flintlock tags and blade commits. I needed a couple of deaths to map patterns, but success came from using the full kit, not mastering a single i-frame dance. That’s the kind of “learn the system” rather than “memorize the pattern” I want from the genre in 2025.

Industry Context: Alt-History Is Having a Moment

We’ve seen European alt-history bend into soulslikes before: Steelrising’s clockwork revolution and Lies of P’s Belle Époque puppetry both reframed familiar mechanics with striking settings. Valor Mortis pushes it further by making the era’s tech and tactics part of the toolkit. A flintlock that matters, saber work that feels Napoleonic-bloody, and a literal Napoleon haunting your mind add personality beyond “grimdark castle #47.” It’s a strong identity play in a crowded field that too often mistakes baroque architecture for worldbuilding.

The Ghostrunner DNA (And The Big Question)

One More Level knows movement. Ghostrunner and its sequel nailed flow: read the arena, choose a line, execute with style. Valor Mortis borrows that philosophy and layers it onto heavier combat. From my demo, the blend works—the jumps are readable, the swings generous, and the combat arenas flex to your route choices. The camera behaved (a small miracle) even during close-quarters dismemberment.

The question is stamina: can a parkour-forward soulslike keep movement expressive without turning resource management into a buzzkill? The build I played paced jumps and fights smartly; some areas challenged platforming more while easing pressure in combat and vice versa. If the full game keeps that ebb-and-flow—and avoids the “oops, you slipped, lose 30 minutes” school of level design—it could carve out its own lane.

What Gamers Need To Know Right Now

• Difficulty is real. The Gamescom boss was brutal, and few reportedly cleared phase two. It’s fair, but it expects you to use every tool.
• Traversal matters. If you hated Sekiro’s verticality, be warned; if you loved Ghostrunner’s flow, this is your jam.
• Gore is explicit. It sells the fantasy, but I hope there’s a toggle for players who want the mechanics without the splatter.
• Open questions: co-op/invasions, build variety beyond fire, and how many routes/solutions each encounter supports across the full game.

TL;DR

Valor Mortis isn’t just “Souls but guns.” It’s Ghostrunner’s momentum meeting saber-and-flintlock brutality in an alt-Napoleonic nightmare. If the full campaign sustains this freedom-of-approach, One More Level may have finally given the soulslike a fresh identity—one worth bleeding for.