At Gamescom 2025, One More Level pulled back the curtain on its new project Valor Mortis, and it immediately stood out from the crowd. The French aesthetic helps it feel timely, especially alongside the popularity of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but it also recalls Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn with a distinct take on flintlock fantasy. Game Rant recently played through the opening prologue, where the game's flair was clear even if the gameplay left questions about its Soulslike label.

The premise places players in the boots of William, a soldier who served Napoleon, died for Napoleon, and has risen for Napoleon. The world he wakes into is not the one he remembers. The prologue drops him onto a battlefield from the Napoleonic Wars, with little explanation. William seems confused, and Napoleon's voice echoes through his head. Those echoes feel more like remembered lessons than an active spirit speaking to him, which may spare the game from an overused video game trope if that reading holds.

On the battlefield, former members of Napoleon's Eternal Guard have been twisted into monstrous abominations by a mysterious substance called Nephtogloblin. That same substance grants William new abilities. His first encounter with it gives him a flamethrower, creating a combat setup with a saber in one hand and a swappable pistol or flamethrower in the other. Scattered lanterns act like Dark Souls bonfires, allowing William to spend Catalyst points to level up. If he dies, those points must be recovered before another death or they are lost.

Combat follows an action RPG mixture of light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges, and parries. A perfect dodge against an unblockable strike slows down time, while a successful parry often opens an enemy to a powerful counterattack. The preview build offered no difficulty options. Yet rather than feeling fragile, the player character felt overpowered. Parrying proved remarkably strong. A single parry could set up an instant kill against regular enemies, and two parries plus a few attacks could break the first boss's posture. The parry timing windows were also unusually wide, making defensive play far less demanding than expected.

The first boss appears at the end of the battlefield: a bloated soldier with extra hands carrying guns. His first form fell so fast that the second form arrived as a relief rather than a shock. Even then, the fight sped up and summoned allies, but it still ended quickly. That pattern inverted the usual Soulslike tension where a second phase brings dread. The game remained fun, but it rarely felt punishing.

That gap between expectation and experience fuels the larger question: is Valor Mortis actually a Soulslike? A reasonable definition has three broad pillars.

• ⚔️ Player weakness and deliberate combat — Players should feel outmatched at first, with triumph earned through careful build choices and timing.

• 🏰 Environmental storytelling — The world should feel grander than the player and reveal its history through exploration and lore.

• 💀 Meaningful death — Death should hurt, but also teach, becoming less threatening as mastery grows.

Titles like Lies of P and Elden Ring embody those ideas. Elden Ring remains one of the most approachable FromSoftware games because of its open structure, but players still feel small against the world and its gods. Combat is highly customizable and deliberate. Lore is scattered through item descriptions and environments. Death can be brutal. By contrast, Black Myth: Wukong often reads more as a hard hack-and-slash game than a true Soulslike, despite the comparisons. Valor Mortis leans toward that latter territory, at least in its opening hours.

In the prologue, William felt smarter, stronger, and nearly invincible. The world did not require much interpretive work; it simply read as a battlefield with red corruption. The combat wheel suggested some options, but not necessarily the build depth or methodical pacing associated with the genre. Death felt so avoidable that the previewer had to intentionally die just to confirm a recovery mechanic existed.

Still, none of that erased the fun. The power fantasy is satisfying, the dark take on Napoleonic warfare is compelling, and the world hints at larger mysteries. The hope is that later areas ramp up the challenge and deepen the systems. Whether the game ultimately earns the Soulslike label remains uncertain, but as a stylish action experience, Valor Mortis has a strong hook.