Lords of the Fallen

The pitch

Lords of the Fallen is CI Games' 2023 reboot of its own 2014 souls-like, built by studio Hexworks around a dual-world hook: Axiom, the world of the living, and Umbral, a parallel realm of the dead that players can peer into or cross over to at will, using it to solve puzzles, find hidden paths, and fight a harder version of the same areas.

A genuinely rare redemption arc

What sets this game apart in this library's coverage isn't the launch — it's what reviewers say happened afterward. "Amazing how the people behind this game listen to the community! I already enjoyed the game when it launched, even though it was obviously flawed in some regards. Over the last 2 years the game received numerous updates," reads a 1,573-vote review posted after the "Update 2.0" relaunch. Another, with 947 votes and dated close to launch itself: "Giving this a positive review because it's genuinely great but also because of how fast the devs are pumping out patches fixing the issues many are plagued with which is unheard of for modern gaming." That pattern repeats across years of reviews rather than a single burst of goodwill — reviewers returning after long breaks specifically to say the game earned a second look.

The 2026 controversy: kernel-level anti-cheat

Set against that goodwill, the current top-voted negative review on the page is about something that has nothing to do with the original 2023 launch. "They have added kernel level anti-cheat as a requirement, and I don't believe any company should be trusted with that level of access to people's computers or privacy," reads a 553-vote review from January 2026. A second, 177-vote review is blunter: "I can't recommend a game with kernel level anti cheat. I appreacitate the studio, but no, no kernel level anti cheat in my PC." A third describes hitting unresolved EasyAntiCheat launch errors that Hexworks itself acknowledged in a developer forum post without a fix. This isn't a launch-week spike that's since cooled off — reviews from the first half of August 2026, within the last two weeks of this review being written, still cite EasyAntiCheat directly, including one player who installed the game specifically expecting a relaxed single-player experience and was surprised to find kernel-level software bundled with a souls-like.

The co-op catch behind a generous idea

The free "Friend Pass" — letting a second player join your world without owning the game — draws real praise on its own: "Absolutely blew me away when a game studio just lets your friends download the game for free just to play together. Absolutely one of the coolest dev moves I've ever seen!" reads a 466-vote review. But multiple detailed negative reviews describe the co-op experience itself as deliberately limited: "Why in god's name would you make a coop game that the coop partner gets 30% less souls and none of the dedicated loot on the ground," reads a 636-vote review, a complaint echoed by another with over 400 votes describing missing item and experience gains as "an intentional design choice." The generosity of a free second copy sits oddly alongside a system reviewers say quietly shortchanges the person using it.

Combat: inventive world, uneven fights

Beyond the two controversies, the most common gameplay complaint concerns enemy design rather than raw difficulty. "Another Souls Like that mistakes tedium for difficulty. Enemy's attack are slow and floaty, they glide several meters forward after each attack and their attack will hit even if you're behind them," reads a 642-vote review. A separate, detailed 666-vote review criticises post-launch balance patches for going too far the other way, describing rebalancing that "trashed" established character builds. The Umbral/Axiom dual-world mechanic itself is rarely the target of criticism — "umbral" appears across dozens of reviews on both sides, almost always describing it as the game's standout original idea even from reviewers otherwise unhappy with the combat.

Where sentiment sits now

Recent English review sentiment — the 100 most recent reviews, spanning August 1–10, 2026 — runs 64% positive, notably below the 72.6% lifetime "Mostly Positive" score. That gap lines up directly with the timing of the kernel-level anti-cheat rollout in early 2026, and reviews from inside the last two weeks confirm it's still an active factor rather than a fading launch-week reaction. Achievement data shows a real completion cliff: the median across 77 achievements is 7.5%, though the top milestones sit at 62–75%, suggesting a solid share of buyers get well into the game before the demanding endgame thins the crowd.

Value

At its current 67%-off price of NZ$14.84, this is an easy value proposition for a full-length, twice-reworked souls-like with two DLC packs — and the free Friend Pass means a second player can try it at no cost at all, loot penalty notwithstanding. Monetisation itself draws no complaints in this corpus.

Verdict

Lords of the Fallen is two stories at once. The first is a genuine rarity in this library's coverage: a rocky 2023 launch turned around by two years of real, credited post-launch work into a game reviewers now argue is underrated for its dual-world exploration and its studio's persistence. The second is much newer and unresolved — a kernel-level anti-cheat requirement added in 2026 that a fresh, detailed wave of reviewers treat as a trust-breaking decision, regardless of how good the game has become. Buy it for the redemption story and the Umbral world. Just decide where you personally stand on kernel-level software before you do.