Lords of the Fallen News

Greetings Lampbearers!

The barrier between Axiom and Umbral is at its weakest point all year, and the witching hour is close at hand… Happy Halloween!

This time last year, we released our very first post-launch content drop: The Season of the Bleak. A new holiday-themed questline, it tasked daring Dark Crusaders to seek out six hidden pumpkins across Mournstead before overcoming a new seasonal boss… the Spirit of the Bleak! Those that triumphed were rewarded with an exclusive ‘Pumpskin’ helm, the ‘Eerie Armour’ tinct, and an ammunition satchel that provided additional inventory space.



But where were the pumpkins hidden? An ancient bard’s song provided the way forward…

One dwells amidst the company of the celebrated dead,
Another in a lonely hamlet where the streets ran red.
One's to be found where the bitter sacrificed dwell,
Another in a place where an innocent girl fell.
One demands from you a head for heights,
Only then can you face a shadow by beacon's light.
Steel yourself in the garb of one who speaks not,
And hope in that bleak ground your bones do not rot.

As for those of you yet to complete the quest, we’ve put together a handy how-to guide...



Step 1: Defeat the Hushed Saint

To start, you must defeat the Hushed Saint, a challenging boss found in the Forsaken Fen. You’ll return to this location later, so take note. Defeating the Hushed Saint is necessary to reveal the pumpkins across the game world.

Step 2: Locate the Six Pumpkins

Each pumpkin only appears after defeating the Hushed Saint and can be found by switching to the Umbral realm:

1st Pumpkin - Skyrest Bridge: Found near where the Tortured Prisoner is held. Go down the spiral staircase and switch to the Umbral to pass a metal gate on the right. Continue down and take a right to find the pumpkin.

2nd Pumpkin - Abandoned Redcopse: Start from the Vestige of Marco the Axe. Head to the village square with a large tree and hanging bodies, then take a left toward a ruined house. Defeat the two enemies, break the crates, and find the pumpkin behind them.

3rd Pumpkin - Forsaken Fen: From the Vestige of Valade, go through the door on the right to reach a bridge guarded by a Shuja warrior. Defeat the enemy, enter Umbral, and find a ladder on the left. Climb up, proceed to the area with a bonfire, defeat the enemies, and Soul Flay the pumpkin.

4th Pumpkin - Pilgrim's Perch: Starting at the Vestige of Ferrers the Charred, take the lift down to the perch. Head toward the ladder on the left to access a wooden bridge and find the pumpkin underneath one of the platforms.

5th Pumpkin - Fief of the Chill Curse: From the Vestige of Loash, go through the arena and down the ladder to the Fief beacon tower. Climb down and move toward the river. Enter Umbral, walk to the left along the riverbed, Soul Flay the barrier, and turn right to find the pumpkin.

6th Pumpkin - Hushed Saint’s Arena: Equip the Hushed Saint’s full armor set. Return to the Hushed Saint’s boss arena, and the pumpkin will be visible within a wooden fence. Soul Flay it to summon the Spirit of the Bleak Season.

Step 3: Defeat the Spirit of the Bleak Season Boss

Boss Behaviour: The Spirit of the Bleak Season has a series of melee attacks and a curse effect that can prevent healing temporarily.

Battle Tips: Keep a safe distance to bait out attacks, then chip away at its health. Adding Holy Salts to your weapon will increase damage.

Rewards: Once you defeat the Spirit of the Bleak Season, your Halloween treats will be unlocked, including a the Pumpskin Helm that boosts item discovery rate, the Eerie Armour Tinct, and an Ammunition Satchel that adds to your supply storage.

If you enjoyed revisiting the Season of the Bleak, why not explore the last year of Lords of the Fallen and read our ‘12 Months of Mournstead’ post, let us know what your favourite post-launch content is, or even leave a Steam review?

In light, we walk

The HEXWORKS Team

Greetings Lampbearers,

A little over a year ago we launched Lords of the Fallen, calling upon you to take up the mantle of ‘Dark Crusader’ in our ambitious dark fantasy action-RPG.

As you’ve journeyed across Mournstead and its dual realms of Axiom and Umbral, we’ve worked closely with the Lords of the Fallen community to continue enhancing the experience, implementing a significant number of your suggestions. These include reducing mob density, adding gamepad rebinding, implementing PvE and PvP balancing, and rolling out comprehensive optimization, to name but a few.

Your feedback has been invaluable, and we’re pleased to confirm that further improvements to Lords of the Fallen will be coming very soon.

In the meantime, to mark these past twelve months in Mournstead, we wanted to look back over our shared journey to date...

October 2023 – Season of the Bleak

Firstly, a timely reminder with Halloween just days away, that the permanent otherworldly quest ‘Season of the Bleak’ was added to the game just days after launch. This pumpkin-spiced questline, which tasked players to collect six pumpkins scattered across Mournstead before confronting the Spirit of the Bleak mini-boss, was the first of several added to Lords of the Fallen as part of our post-launch content roadmap, setting the tone for what was to come.

If you’re yet to claim your orange-hued helm, but don’t know where to start, keep eyes peeled for our how-to guide on October 31st.



October 2023 – Post-launch roadmap

Not long after the game’s release, we shared our post-launch, free content roadmap that outlined our plans for the game. In addition to continuing our regular cadence of experience enhancements and quality-of-life improvements, the roadmap also featured a series of new questlines that would be released through to the end of 2023, starting with the aforementioned ‘Season of the Bleak’, and continuing from the middle of November with ‘Way of the Bucket’ (more on that below).



October & November 2023 – Difficulty Balancing

During the early weeks post-launch, we worked diligently to refine the balance between challenge and enjoyability in Lords of the Fallen, based on the feedback you sent. As a result, before the end of November 2023, we’d released more than 25 updates with an excess of 100 enhancements that improved your experience of the game.



These included a reduction in enemy density throughout Mournstead, with the number of mobs decreasing by up to 30% in some of the most challenging areas; a rebalancing of ranged enemy accuracy so players weren’t sniped by Adyr’s forces before they were even spotted; and improving enemy leashing so they wouldn’t pursue you overenthusiastically from one area to another.

November 2023 – Way of the Bucket

The Way of the Bucket questline featured a new armour set formed from some of the many broken pails found across Mournstead, and paid tribute to the self-styled Bucketlord… one of the more unusual characters found in Pilgrim’s Perch. After defeating the sinners (those who had drifted from the Bucketlords’ gospel) and collecting the ‘Pride of the Bucketlords’ items they drop, players could exchange them for armour crafted from the wooden scuttles.



The quest launched alongside a new selection of spells, broadening the arcane options available for Dark Crusaders to exploit.

December 2023 – Season of Revelry

As the blood wine spilled over in December, we released the two-part ‘Season of Revelry’. While the first update – ‘Offerings of Orius’ – added six new spells (including the devastating Immolation), additional secret boss weapon abilities, and three new projectiles (Blood Vomit, Explosive Mines, and Frost Worms) the second part – ‘Trial of the Three Spirits’ – unleashed three questlines that on completion would provide new, separate armours as tributes to the gods of Umbral, Rhogar, and Orius.



This concluding part of the Season of Revelry also saw the introduction of new grievous strikes, embellishing each family of weapons with two unique finishes: one for single-handed wielding and another for two-handed wielding. It also saw two extremely popular community requests rolled out: gamepad rebinding, and a Coffer storage box added to Skyrest Bridge, which allowed players to free up inventory space and deposit up to 2,000 items in it.

Oh, and we added a fourth, festive throwable… SNOWBALLS!

April 2024 – Master of Fate

One of our biggest post-launch content drops launched as part of our ‘Master of Fate – v1.5’ update in April this year: the Advanced Game Modifier System. Highly anticipated by the community since the release of the post-launch roadmap timeline, the system introduced the ability to fully customise each playthrough of Lords of the Fallen through six different modifiers and randomisers.



Some, like the pre-upgraded loot option – which meant weapons and shields looted from enemies come pre-upgraded according to player level – supported new players while others, including the ability to reduce the number of Vestiges, increase the mob density, or activate permadeath, challenged even Mournstead’s mightiest!

It's been fascinating to see the community experiment with the combinations of modifiers and randomisers on offer; one particular favourite of ours – activating pre-upgraded loot, randomising loot and enemies, and turning on permadeath, effectively transforms Lords of the Fallen into an all-new roguelite experience… give it a go, if you dare!

With the release of Master of Fate, we’d concluded the epic post-launch content roadmap, delivered more than 30 updates, vastly improved stability and performance, and added an arsenal of new weapons sets, armours, projectiles, and spells that together elevated Lords of the Fallen from v1.0 in October, to v1.5 less than seven months later.

But there was more to come…

May 2024 – Clash of Champions

Boss battles offer some of the most memorable moments in Lords of the Fallen, whether that’s against the grotesque and putrid Congregator of Flesh, the dragon-riding Lightreaper, or even the initial confrontation with Pieta, She of Blessed Renewal. In May, we surprise-launched the ‘Clash of Champions’ update, accessible through Mournstead’s many Vestiges, that would put these bosses front and centre once again.



Featuring two new modes – ‘Echoes of Battle’ and ‘Crucible’ – Clash of Champions unlocked a way for Dark Crusaders to experience their favourite boss encounters again and again, or challenge themselves in deadly boss rush encounters across six increasingly challenging trials.

Unlocked by defeating the bosses listed in each of the separated crucibles in the main game, these trials go from facing three or four bosses, through to the ultimate challenge… The ‘Crucible of the Lords’, which features an incredible 12 bosses in consecutive combat.

Both modes are playable either solo or with a fellow Lampbearer in online co-op multiplayer, with additional rewards – including exclusive armour tincts – unlockable for those skilled enough to run the gauntlet of Crucible’s trials.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the past twelve months in Mournstead, and again, thank you for your feedback during the year. We’ll share more news on those upcoming, new enhancements very soon, but in the meantime, post your favourite moments in the comments below – or even leave a Steam review and let us know.

In light, we walk.

The HEXWORKS Team

Greetings Lampbearers,

Please find below details on today’s maintenance update for Lords of the Fallen.

As always, if you’re enjoying your adventures through Mournstead, we’d greatly appreciate it if you could leave us a review on Steam.

In light, we walk.
The HEXWORKS Team





[h4]Improvements[/h4]

• Optimized multiplayer connectivity for improved performance.
  
• Fixed minor issues.
  

Check out our roadmap here.

In Light we Walk.

Virtual photographies in this post are courtesy of @virtual_koda - created with the in-game 3D Photo Mode


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501750/Lords_of_the_Fallen/

Links:
Official Website: https://lordsofthefallen.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lotfgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/cigames

#DareToBelieve

[h3]Greetings Lampbearers, [/h3]

If you've been waiting for the perfect moment to embark upon the epic world of Lords of the Fallen, that time is now. We're offering an exclusive 50% discount on Steam, following the recent release of two major content updates as we hit Version 1.5 - ‘Master of Fate’ & ‘Clash of Champions’.

[h3]Version 1.5 Master of Fate[/h3]


Released in April, Version 1.5 - ‘Master of Fate’ marked a pivotal moment for Lords of the Fallen, the culmination of over 30 post-launch updates resulting in significantly improved performance, stability and optimisation, alongside rigorous difficulty balancing in response to player feedback. As part of this, the Advanced Game Modifier System was also added to the game, allowing you to fully customise your playthrough right from the start, whether that’s making it easier, harder, or just swapping a few things around.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501750/Lords_of_the_Fallen?snr=2___

Advanced Game Modifier Options

Ironman: Dying in Umbral resets your current playthrough, and you will awaken at the start once again. The world progression is reset, but player progression and inventory is retained. Certain scripted moments are excluded from this.

Pre-Upgraded Loot: Weapons, shields and catalysts found as loot from enemies, or in the world, will come pre-upgraded based on your player level.

Randomized Loot: Loot dropped by enemies, and found in the world, is randomized. Does not affect quest and progression items, nor unique boss items.

Randomized Enemies: Enemies encountered in the world now appear in a random order. Does not impact named boss enemies.

More Enemies: The world contains significantly more enemies.

Withered Healing: All healing received is Withered Healing, and must be confirmed by dealing damage to enemies.

Vestige Decay:
- No Vestige Decay: No Vestige has withered away, leaving you all possible places of respite.
- Minor Vestige Decay: Some Vestiges have withered away, leaving you with fewer places of respite.
- Extensive Vestige Decay: Many Vestiges have withered away, often leaving you without rest for long stretches.
- Tremendous Vestige Decay: All Vestiges, except for a rare few, have withered away. Truly, a restless experience.

Observe the Advanced Game Modifier System in action.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Clash of Champions[/h3]



Launched in May, ‘Clash of Champions’ introduced our formidable boss-rush mode, as highly requested from the community.

Accessible through the game’s Vestige checkpoint markers, ‘Clash of Champions’ features two distinct experiences for players: ‘Echoes of Battle’ and ‘Crucible’. While Echoes of Battle allows players to relive their favourite boss encounters, including Ellianne the Starved, Congregator of Flesh, and Radiant Sentinel, Crucible is a series of six increasingly challenging trials of pre-selected bosses that must be overcome without dying to unlock rewards, including Shrine Currency and exclusive new armour tincts.

Crucible - A gruelling test of combat
Undergo the ultimate challenge in Crucible, where you can choose from pre-selected trials, each offering different bosses to face with differing rewards based on the level of difficulty. As for those who are truly one with Mournstead, we challenge you to take on the Crucible of the Lords. Crucible mode is available after finishing the campaign once, with different crucibles unlocking after meeting certain criteria.

Echoes of Battle - A rematch to the death
For those of you who still have a bone to pick with a felled foe, we offer unlimited access to vent your frustrations - re-challenge foes you have defeated in battle to your heart's content.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501750/Lords_of_the_Fallen?snr=2___

Links:
Official Website: https://lordsofthefallen.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lotfgame

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/cigames

#DareToBelieve