One More Level’s Ambitious Genre Mashup Delivers Brilliant Ideas Alongside Frustrating Technical Woes
In an era where Soulslike games have become nearly as ubiquitous as battle royales, finding one that genuinely surprises you feels like discovering water in a desert. Developer One More Level deserves genuine credit for attempting something audacious with Valor Mortis — a first-person action game that fuses BioShock’s magical hand abilities with the punishing melee combat of FromSoftware’s catalogue, all set against a bizarre alternate-history Napoleonic backdrop.
It’s a concept that sounds like it shouldn’t work. Yet when Valor Mortis fires on all cylinders, it’s genuinely exhilarating.
A Strange Brew That Mostly Works
The core conceit is immediately compelling: you play as William, an undead soldier in Napoleon’s army, navigating a world where the legendary emperor supposedly won at Waterloo — and the resulting timeline has transformed the world into something resembling a disturbing abstract painting. Zombified French soldiers roam battlefields littered with horse corpses and discarded bayonets. Naval ships have been raised unnaturally into the air. It’s grotesque, surreal, and refreshingly original.
Combat channels this same creative energy. Your dominant hand handles swashbuckling swordplay — parrying, dodging, and executing enemies in time-honored Souls tradition — while your corrupted left hand unleashes magical abilities and firearms. The synergy between these systems creates genuinely exciting encounters. You might ignite an exploding barrel from afar to scatter a group of enemies, block a rushing attacker, then finish them with a pistol shot. Having multiple viable approaches to combat helps sustain interest, especially given the game’s unfortunately limited enemy variety.
The build customization system adds meaningful depth. Three melee weapons, three guns, and three magical powers each feature their own upgrade trees. A skill tree full of perks and equippable modifiers called “ambers” let you tailor William to your playstyle. One particularly effective combination involved equipping mods that healed on execution kills and boosted damage at full health — rewarding careful, aggressive play with faster, more satisfying skirmishes.
When Ambition Outpaces Execution
Unfortunately, Valor Mortis’ greatest strength — its willingness to try everything — also generates its most significant problems.
The combat, while conceptually strong, suffers from persistent issues. Invisible borders make fighting large enemies feel like swinging a pool noodle from several feet away. Enemies sometimes attack empty air or simply stand motionless while you cut them down. Like many Soulslike peers, foes cycle through limited attack patterns, leaving you waiting for repetitive strikes to finish before landing executions.
Boss fights represent perhaps the game’s most disappointing aspect. There are shockingly few of them — you can progress for hours without encountering one. When they do appear, they’re often just beefed-up versions of regular enemies or recycled encounters. Even original bosses fall into predictable patterns: wait for telegraphed attacks, parry, counter, repeat. The irony is palpable — random enemies and environmental hazards claimed far more of my deaths than these underwhelming “bosses.”
Platforming sections, despite the studio’s pedigree with the Ghostrunner series, feel similarly unpolished. Wall-running and grappling through the air can feel awesome when they work, but getting caught on ledges, falling through environments, and passing through objects undermine the experience. A mechanic allowing you to manifest platforms from afar using hand powers shows promise but feels tacked on given its inconsistent execution.
A World Worth Exploring, A Story Worth Forgetting
Where Valor Mortis genuinely shines is its level design. The war-ravaged 19th-century battlefields possess a grim personality that kept me engaged. One standout section had me creeping through a ruined town where only children survived, using their small size to their advantage — a genuinely memorable sequence that showcased what the game could achieve when firing on all cylinders.
Yes, there are Soulslike clichés — including what amounts to a poison swamp level, here reimagined as a flooded village overcome by toxic waters in a way that feels like war crimes made manifest. But the sheer strangeness of the setting — including a moment where you suddenly find yourself in Egypt fighting a sphinx — maintains a sense of unpredictability.
The story, however, falls flat. Despite BioShock vibes, Valor Mortis delivers a generic “war is hell” message undermined by the absurdity surrounding it. Characters are mostly forgettable, and the narrative serves more as a framework for gameplay than a compelling reason to push forward.
Technical Troubles
The most significant barrier to enjoyment is the game’s technical state. Hard crashes occurred regularly — including one recurring issue that completely shut down my PC when launching from Steam. Entire environmental pieces vanished. Objects behaved unpredictably. The overall package carries a duct-taped quality that distracts from the compelling ruined world.
These issues need patching, and fast. When everything works correctly, Valor Mortis delivers on its ambitious promises. The problem is that “when everything works” isn’t nearly often enough.
Valor Mortis is what you’d get if a truck filled with used BioShock copies crashed into a GameStop warehouse filled with used Dark Souls copies. The result is something refreshingly unique despite wearing its influences proudly — even when execution doesn’t always match ambition.
The first-person Soulslike formula with a sword in one hand and fire magic in the other is genuinely as cool as it sounds. Taking down grotesque monsters with a cutlass is frequently thrilling. But not everything this ambitious experiment attempts succeeds, and the bugs, technical issues, and narrative shortcomings prevent it from reaching its full potential.
Despite its flaws, I spent over 20 hours in this bleak, curious world and don’t regret a moment. There’s plenty to appreciate in this offbeat Soulslike — just be prepared for a rocky journey through the Waterloo that never was.