Category: Video Games

Valor Mortis, the first-person action game set in an alt-history version of the Napoleonic wars, was announced earlier this year at Gamescom Opening Night Live. In its announcement and subsequent marketing, the developers have been clear about one big element of Valor Mortis: it’s a soulslike.

Sure, it’s a first-person game, which automatically makes it look radically different from any FromSoftware game or even the 2D soulslikes such as Hollow Knight, Nine Sols, and Blasphemous. But speaking to me at the Game Industry Conference in Poznań, Wielkopolska, game director Radosław Ratusznik was hyperaware of the expectations that such a bold declaration would immediately attach to Valor Mortis. And he’s determined to do right by players while remaining committed to the perspective shift.

Valor Mortis is being developed by One More Level, the studio behind 2020’s Ghostrunner. Ratusznik tells me that the studio is largely made up of Souls game fans who badly wanted to tackle the genre, but knew they needed more development experience as a group first. This, he says, is what led to Ghostrunner, which is a first-person action game that, at least by our own estimation, was pretty great.

With one success under their belt, One More Level turned to Valor Mortis. Ratusznik says that the idea for gameplay came before the game’s setting – the team wanted something that would let them mix melee combat and firearms with the more magical mutant abilities. It just so happened that the game’s lead concept artist was also an historian with a lot of knowledge on Napoleonic Europe.

Which is how Valor Mortis ended up set during the Napoleonic Wars, featuring a monstrous Napoleon raising an army of undead mutants to rampage across Europe.

“I think, for many players, the Napoleonic era sounds really to be like… I don’t want to say unattractive, but with this silly uniform, something like that, they’re not treating it like something that is maybe attractive for them, and we wanted to change that a little bit,” Ratusznik says. “We think that this is a significant part of our history here in Europe, Napoleon as the emperor, and we want to tell the story, our own version about it. It’s not historically accurate. So we don’t want to educate players, of course, about the history, but we think that it’s something unique, something new for the players to play, to explore.”

You play as William, a British soldier who initially joined Napoleon’s army wooed by promises of a free Europe, but who is gradually coming to the realization that war is far from rosy. Unlike his fellow soldiers, William can control the nephtoglobin, the substance that prompts the undead mutation, and is able to retain his sanity while making use of its powers and fighting his way through the gruesome, warped battlefields left in Napoleon’s wake.

“The theme of horror is very important for us,” Ratusznik explains. “So it’s not even just these monsters that you are fighting. We are also telling the story about the war and how there are no winners, no true winners at war. That we are in the middle of this conflict, we will learn about each side of the conflict. So this is a story about the foreign soldier in the foreign army, in the foreign land, because we are exploring the eastern parts of Europe. We are not telling if it’s Poland or is it some other country. So it’s more like a universal story about soldiers in the war.”

Having played quite a bit of Valor Mortis at GIC, I can confirm that despite how silly the premise seemed to me initially, One More Level has indeed made something pretty unsettling. An image permanently burned into my memory is of a soldier in uniform, on all fours, leaping out at me like a dog from behind a pile of bodies. But instead of looking at me with his face, his head was contorted downward to put his large, ridiculous, fuzzy wig-hat out front, which had opened down the middle into a mouth full of teeth and was snarling at me as it attacked. Weird, startling, and very effective.

But whatever you think of the setting, the gameplay is fundamentally very souls. There’s a stamina meter to manage, poise meters on enemies to break with attacks and well-timed parries. When you die, you of course drop all the currency you’ve collected from enemies as you go and have to fetch it back, or lose it forever. And there are bonfires (in this case, lanterns) that serve as safe spots and checkpoints to restart from with each death. Valor Mortis is also quite difficult. I won’t pretend to be the best Souls player around (I’m decidedly middling) but I spent a good long while running up against the game’s first (I think) boss, which had two phases, summoned smaller enemies, and had an enormous attack radius. I died. A lot.

And yet, Ratusznik is on the defensive about whether his game qualifies as a Soulslike or not, in part because of the first-person perspective, but also because of the high expectations put on any game that purports to hail from that tradition by its many fans.

“I think that the genre is such a demanding thing that if you want to create a good thing for this demanding community, you need to be very well prepared,” Ratusznik says. “And we wanted to communicate it this way. We are telling people, ‘We are a Soulslike. And If you are not sure about it, you can challenge us. You can ask us why we think it’s Soulslike.’ And we are perfectly fine with that. And we know that players after the playtest, after showing the game at Gamescom, at TGS, we were also on PAX in Seattle, and all the players who are playing, they are telling us, ‘I was doubtful about it that you can manage to make a Soulslike in first-person, but after playing it, I believe you. It’s true. It’s a Soulslike in first-person.’ So that’s what’s very cool for me. I mean, personally, as a fan of the genre, that we managed to deliver the game in the genre, it’s something amazing.”

So I ask Ratusznik, what does it mean to be a Soulslike? What are the defining characteristics, to him, that Valor Mortis just had to embody?

“Well there is always a debate, how many features from the FromSoft games should game have to be a Soulslike?” he says. “So in our example is, of course, a stamina-based combat system. So that’s the first thing. Then we have the checkpoints that are kind of similar to the bonfires in Soulslike. In our game this is a lantern. So you have to reach the lantern to save, make your checkpoints. When you die, you will start from this place. You can then rest, the enemies will come back to life. So this kind of thing is present. But also the exploration is very important, I think, for the Soulslike in this kind of Metroidvania approach in the level structure.

“In our game we even push it further. So we also have these elements of Metroidvania, such as abilities that you are gathering that you can use on previously visited levels to unlock some alternative paths. Also the shortcuts are very important, so you need to explore to find the shortcuts to get faster to the safe point, to these checkpoints or something. So there is a lot of that. And also, the boss fights as the true challenges, very demanding. So I think, yeah, I mean these elements are there for sure, but it’s not like we are taking all of it blindly. We are thinking about each of this and how it’ll fit our vision for this game and also the first-person perspective, which is kind of tricky.”

The perspective switch really is a difference maker for Valor Mortis, as it transforms how combat plays out, how parries and dodges and swings need to be timed and directed, and how boss mechanics can be tuned for challenge. But given the popularity of the Soulslike genre, I’m surprised that there aren’t more first-person Souls games out there – most people just follow in either the Dark Souls tradition or the Hollow Knight one. Why is that?

“I think it’s not easy to make it happen, to be honest,” Ratusznik says. “I mean we did Ghostrunner, so we learned how to make first-person melee combat. And even for us, it was not easy to make the melee combat in first-person satisfying and not confusing. But in Poland we can do it because we have Dying Light, Cyberpunk is also with first-person combat. And we have our games, so Ghostrunner and now Valor Mortis. So it’s a bit tricky.

“You need to make at least a few tricks to somehow help players to get better feedback from each of the actions that they are taking. So for example, when we attack the enemies, we have some kind of a system that is in the action fighting games where you are snapped to the enemy, pulled to the enemy somehow. So we are attacking and the system is assisting you in getting closer to the enemies. Because it’s hard to tell the distance. Both the collider of your weapon is a little bit bigger than you expect just to feel that you hit it. So we need to set it up properly. There are a lot of small things that you have to add to make this combat feel juicy but also satisfying for the players. Of course on top of that there are proper animations, proper animation of the enemies, of the reactions of the enemies. Sound design is very important. Also…there needs to be some additional assets, like some arrows, some indicators that are telling you that if someone is behind you, these kinds of things.”

Valor Mortis is planned for a 2026 release on PC, PS5, and Xbox. I ask Ratusznik how it’s been developing for consoles this generation, and he gives me a rather surprising take: he really likes the Xbox Series S.

“Each generation is easier, the certification process is easier and also the knowledge of the hardware is bigger among the developers,” he says. “So I think also the fact that you have to optimize for all consoles is beneficial for all the players, right? So when we need to optimize our game for Xbox Series S, then the PC players also get a more optimized game, right?

“I know a lot of players who really love, for example, one genre or one type of game. They are only playing, I don’t know, Call Duty or Gears of War, so they don’t have to buy the newest stuff to play their games. So they have the Series S. And if you try to make a PC for the same cost, for example, it won’t be possible, right? So if we manage to optimize the game for the S, I know that a lot of developers are struggling with it, but I think it’s more like a challenge that you should handle to make the game optimized for players.”

But there is one console conspicuously missing from the lineup. Where’s the Nintendo Switch 2?

“I mean I would love that one day,” Ratusznik says. “So we are considering it. It’s not like that we are announcing anything, but personally I would love to bring this game to Switch 2. I think that it would be nice to see this type of game on this console.”

We also spoke to Ratusznik at GIC about Soulslike difficulty, and why the game might have an easy mode, but won’t have a bunch of other difficulty settings. You can read our conversation right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Bethesda has outlined the patch notes for Fallout 4 ahead of the release of the Creations Menu update and Anniversary Edition.

During the recent Fallout Day broadcast, Bethesda announced Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, due out across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on November 10, 2025.

Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition — designed to coincide with the post-apocalyptic role-playing game’s 10th anniversary — contains the six official add-ons and over 150 pieces of Creation Club content. Creations (user created content) arrive in Fallout 4 via a brand new in-game Creations menu, which will make it easy for players to find and download the new content on PC and console.

Now, Bethesda has detailed Fallout 4’s Creation Menu update, due out on November 10 alongside the release of the Anniversary Edition, and it includes more than expected. However, Bethesda issued a warning to mod users. Fallout 4 mods will undergo maintenance November 6-10, and during this time, Fallout 4 mods and Creation Club will be offline. This means you won’t be able to download or upload any new content (you’ll still have access to change your mod load order and play the game).

Bethesda asked players to disable any mods that change the main menu before the November 10 update (which requires changes to the main menu screen). If you don’t, the mods may break with the patch.

“Thank you for your patience as we work to roll these changes out and lay the groundwork for things like additional storage for Creations,” Bethesda said in a post on Steam.

Meanwhile, the Fallout 4 patch notes reveal some surprising but welcome gameplay and performance improvements. VATS Accuracy should now be fixed so hit chances are consistent across platforms and no longer drop to 0% or show incorrect values (this has been a problem for some time). Targeting enemies through walls without the Penetrator perk is no longer possible, too. There’s also improved Ultrawide and Super Ultrawide Support, and Resolution Detection (Autodetect now sets supported display resolutions, preventing crashes on launch).

Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition Creation Club content includes unique weapons, power armor, Pip Boy paint jobs, and more. During Fallout Day, Bethesda teased some of the Creations in the works, including one that will bring a “slice of the Mojave Desert” to the Commonwealth, an escape room experience, and even a mind’s eye version of your spouse voiced by the original actors you can interact with. The six official expansions included are the Far Harbor, Automatron, and Nuka-World story add-ons, and the Contraptions, Vault-Tec, and Wasteland Workshop add-ons.

Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition will be available on Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Steam and PC. It’s coming to Nintendo Switch 2 at some point in 2026, marking the first time Fallout 4 will be available on a Nintendo console. Patch notes are below.

Fallout 4 – Creations Menu Update November 10 patch notes:

• Creations Menu: A new in-game Creations menu has been added, making it easier than ever to discover, download and enjoy content from professional developers and passionate enthusiasts alike.

Gameplay & Performance

• VATS Accuracy: VATS hit chances are now consistent across platforms and no longer drop to 0% or show incorrect values. Targeting enemies through walls without the Penetrator perk is no longer possible.
• NPC Visual Creations: Fixed stuttering and hitching caused by Creations that edit NPC visuals. Performance is improved when using such Creations.

Stability & Crashes

• BNET Connectivity: Better handling when there is a  Bethesda.net outage
• Crafting Station Crash: Interacting with crafting stations or the workshop on ultrawide monitors no longer causes crashes.

Ultrawide & Super Ultrawide Support

• UI & HUD Scaling: UI elements, HUD backgrounds, and item previews now scale correctly for 21:9 and 32:9 aspect ratios. Menus, quest updates, tutorials, workshops, and inspected objects are no longer stretched or squished.
• Pip-Boy Map: Players can now place markers, fast travel, and pan the map to the right side in the Pip-Boy when using ultrawide resolutions.
• Save Preview Images: Save preview images are now letterboxed to avoid looking squished on ultrawide monitors.

Miscellaneous

• Resolution Detection: Autodetect now sets supported display resolutions, preventing crashes on launch.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.