How Valor Mortis Turns Napoleon Into a Soulslike Nightmare Ahead of October 13
One More Level's first-person soulslike resurrects a British soldier in occupied Napoleonic Europe. Here is what its new trailer reveals before October 13.
One More Level built its name on Ghostrunner's split-second parkour combat. Its next game trades cyberpunk towers for the mud of the Napoleonic Wars, and it is five days from launch. Valor Mortis, published by Lyrical Games, arrives October 13 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam, and a run of official videos released over the past seven weeks has shown exactly what the studio's jump from a neon-lit sword-runner to a first-person soulslike actually looks like in motion.
A Resurrected Soldier in Occupied Europe
Valor Mortis casts players as William Dowsett, an Englishman who volunteered to fight for Napoleon's army out of belief in a unified Europe, only to die on campaign and be dragged back from the grave by a mysterious substance that leaves him part man, part weapon. The game's story trailer, which debuted at gamescom's Opening Night Live, introduces the Shrike, the rebel leader organizing resistance against the occupying French forces in a fog-shrouded, alternate-history Eastern Europe. It also confirmed that Napoleon Bonaparte himself appears as a character, played in motion capture by César Award winner Vincent Cassel.
William isn't voiced as a silent protagonist either. Actor James Alexander, who plays Dowsett, narrates the game's own Gameplay Overview trailer released September 30, walking through the fiction behind the resurrection and why a disillusioned soldier ends up hunting monsters in territory he once helped conquer.
Steel, Powder and Supernatural Transmutations
The Gameplay Overview is the most detailed look at Valor Mortis yet, and it leans hard into the "soulslike" half of its pitch. Combat is built around stamina management, light and heavy attacks, parries and counters, with weapons split between grounded period steel and era-appropriate firearms. A two-handed Claymore trades speed for impact, while a Musket outranges William's sidearm pistol at the cost of a slower reload. Lyrical Games frames weapon choice as a tactical layer rather than a preference: different enemy types reward different loadouts, and the trailer shows William swapping tools mid-fight rather than committing to one build for an entire encounter.
Alongside the period-accurate arsenal sits William's left hand, which channels Transmutations, supernatural abilities fed by whatever brought him back to life. Fire sets enemies alight over time, Shield absorbs incoming damage before releasing a shockwave that can stagger a crowd, and Grapple pulls William toward fixed points for both traversal and combat repositioning. It's a familiar structure for anyone who has played a Souls game's weapon-arts or sorcery systems, but grafting it onto musket-era combat gives Valor Mortis an identity its earlier trailers only hinted at.
Catalysts, Ambers and a Builder's Reasons to Die
Progression follows the genre's established shape with its own vocabulary. Catalysts are the upgrade currency, spent at checkpoint Lanterns to raise health, stamina and parry strength, and like Souls series runes, they drop at the spot where William falls and have to be recovered before a second death erases them. Ambers, found scattered through the game's levels, slot in at those same Lanterns to customize a build rather than simply raise stats, which the developer frames as the game's route to replayability once the main story is finished.
A Demo Already Out, and a Delay That Bought It Time
None of this is coming in totally untested. A playable Steam demo has been live since the summer, and One More Level has said publicly that feedback from it shaped the final weeks of development. The October 13 date is itself the product of that process: Valor Mortis was originally set for September 24, and Lyrical Games pushed it back when that month's release calendar became crowded, saying the extra weeks gave the team room to refine the game rather than ship into the noise.
That kind of pre-launch transparency, paired with a demo players can already judge for themselves, puts Valor Mortis in a different position than most first-person soulslikes get at this stage. The question five days out isn't whether the combat looks competent in a trailer. It's whether stamina management, period weaponry and left-hand sorcery hold together across a full campaign, and whether William's resurrection story gives Shrike and Napoleon's scenes the weight the gameplay footage is already promising.
Release Day Details
Valor Mortis launches October 13 for $39.99 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam, with a $59.99 Deluxe Edition adding a story DLC planned for next year alongside cosmetic packs. It also arrives day one on Xbox Game Pass, giving subscribers a no-cost way to see whether One More Level's leap from cyberpunk parkour to Napoleonic soulslike pays off. A PS5 listing is live on the PlayStation Store for anyone planning to pre-load ahead of launch.
Official links
Mira leads previews at Gamers6. She has spent fifteen years playing co-op shooters badly and writing about them well, and she still keeps a spreadsheet of every weapon reload animation worth the frame count.
