•According to a Polygon review by Chris Harper, Valor Mortis, a first-person Soulslike action RPG developed by One Mer Level (the studio behind the Ghostrunner games), takes players into an alternate version of the Napoleonic Wars. Released for PC via Steam and Xbox Series X|S on September 18, 2025, the game casts players as William Dowsett, a resurrected British soldier in Napoleon’s Grande Armée.
The story follows William through four chapters spanning roughly 13 hours of gameplay. Set in 1817, when Napoleon has apparently won the Battle of Waterloo and united Western European forces, the world is ravaged by the “Crimson Plague” — a zombie outbreak that has devastated the Eastern Front.
In true Soulslike fashion, William must defeat arrays of malformed zombie soldiers to reach the next lantern checkpoint. Resting at a lantern replenishes HP-recovery flasks and restores health but also revives enemies. Upon death, players respawn at the latest lantern and must return to their site of demise to recover lost catalysts — the level-up materials. Dying again before retrieval means losing them forever.
The reviewer found Valor Mortis a “strangely relaxing experience,” combining an oddly serene atmosphere with forgiving elements that counterbalance its brutal combat. The game is described as easy to learn, hard to master, and a joy to retry.
What initially drew players in was the historical setting — few games feature the Napoleonic Wars, and those that do tend toward top-down tactics gameplay. Within minutes of William’s awakening in a murky forest, players encounter epic vistas accompanied by Napoleon’s telepathic voice: “I see you — all of you. Each and every one.”
The scenery ranges from vast plains littered with fallen soldiers to snowy mountain paths, ruined villages, old churches, misty graveyards, and abandoned quarries. The first-person perspective makes these views “extra spectacular,” unobstructed by a playable character.
None of the locations are busy — no marching troops, gunshots, or screams remain due to the Crimson Plague. Instead there are corpses and lone wandering monstrosities: zombie lancers, grenadiers, musketeers, soldiers merged with hounds, zombies molten into cannons, and living piles of corpses. Each requires different tactics.
Napoleon’s telepathic orders function mainly as background lore, though the game features a proper quest system distinguishing main and side quests without handholding markers. Side quests include investigating a crying baby found only as blood in a crib, a corpse turned into a scarecrow, and the ghosts of an abandoned family.
While the main story is linear, the world allows Metroidvania-style exploration. New abilities let players unlock doors, remove walls, and sling across chasms using a grappling hook, revealing extra loot such as weapon upgrade materials, hand grenades, and equippable amber stones.
Victory relies heavily on parrying regular attacks and dodging unblockable ones. The small parry window requires memorizing opponents’ attack patterns — something the reviewer found easier in first-person than third-person perspective. Beyond melee weapons, players have guns requiring bullets and magical abilities using “nephtoglobin” (mana).
Valor Mortis almost encourages respecing: for a moderate amount of catalysts adjusted to current level, players can reallocate passive skill points whenever they rest at a lantern. Catalysts are dropped before boss arena entrances upon death, and damaging a boss rewards even if the player dies.
This makes the game “significantly easier than a game like Mørk Souls.” The total of nine swords, guns, and spells includes relatively simple abilities — more HP recovery, better parrying impact, higher headshot damage. Quick in-combat weapon swapping lets players exploit multiple weapons’ strengths without committing to one.
The main difficulty concern is uneven balance. Regular exploration enemies were described as “perfect,” requiring only two or three tries usually. However, the first boss, General Lothaire, nearly depleted the player’s HP bar with a single failed parry — becoming a major obstacle before subsequent bosses proved more manageable.
Apart from these difficulty hiccups, Valor Mortis is described as a “steady Soulslike that prioritizes fun over hardcore gameplay,” making time within its war-torn world memorable.
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