Valor Mortis Turns Napoleonic Horror Into a Surprisingly Relaxed Soulslike

Valor Mortis combines first-person Soulslike combat with an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars. It is grim, demanding and occasionally frightening, yet its flexible progression and hauntingly quiet world make repeated attempts feel unusually inviting.

A Napoleonic apocalypse

Developed by One More Level, the studio behind the Ghostrunner games, Valor Mortis follows William Dowsett, a resurrected British soldier serving in Napoleon’s Grande Armée. The game’s history has diverged sharply from reality: Napoleon appears to have won Waterloo, the year is 1817, and a plague has devastated the Eastern Front.

The Crimson Plague has left behind malformed soldiers, abandoned settlements and unanswered questions about who caused the catastrophe. Napoleon is not merely a distant historical figure, either. His voice reaches William through unsettling telepathic orders, although these messages function mainly as mysterious background lore.

The game’s unusual setting makes it a compelling subject for the wider arcade and gaming news we follow at RETROCADE.

Quiet landscapes, disturbing enemies

William travels through snowy mountain routes, open plains filled with fallen soldiers, ruined villages, old churches, misty graveyards and abandoned quarries. The environments feel grounded in their military era while still offering plenty of visual variety.

These places are striking partly because they are so empty. There are no marching armies or constant gunfire. Instead, the player moves through forests, burned villages, mountains and abandoned carts, surrounded by corpses and isolated monstrosities. The result is melancholic rather than relentlessly frightening: the evidence of lost lives can be more unsettling than the creatures themselves.

Those creatures draw heavily on Napoleon’s military forces. Zombie lancers, grenadiers and musketeers appear alongside more grotesque creations, including soldiers fused with hounds, bodies melted into cannons and living heaps of corpses. Each enemy type demands a different response, and many are difficult when first encountered.

Lanterns, lost catalysts and forgiving progression

Like other Soulslikes, Valor Mortis places checkpoints throughout its levels. Here, they are called lanterns. Resting at one restores William’s health and replenishes his healing flasks, but defeated enemies return.

Death sends William back to the latest lantern and leaves his catalysts at the location of his demise. These materials are used for levelling up, and dying again before recovering them means losing them permanently.

However, the game is more accommodating than many entries in the genre. A lantern is always positioned before a major boss arena, and catalysts lost to a boss are placed outside the entrance rather than deep inside the fight. Damaging a boss also awards a small amount of catalysts, even if William eventually dies. This gives repeated attempts a useful sense of progress.

A combat system built around adaptation

Combat centres on parrying normal attacks and dodging blows that cannot be blocked. The parry timing is tight, so success depends on reading and remembering enemy attack patterns. The first-person viewpoint makes incoming strikes easier to judge, as weapons appear to travel directly towards William rather than across a distant third-person camera.

William can use melee weapons, firearms and supernatural abilities. Guns consume bullets, while magical skills use nephtoglobin, the game’s mana resource. Quick weapon swapping encourages combinations rather than commitment to a single loadout.

A sabre can provide the blocking strength needed for a parry, while a rapier can exploit an enemy’s weak point. A fire spell may soften the target, and a successful strike on that weak point can produce a nephtoglobin orb for further abilities. Although the arsenal contains only nine swords, guns and spells in total, the interactions between them keep the combat options feeling broader than the raw number suggests.

Respecs make experimentation worthwhile

At first, the relatively small skill tree may appear limited. Its abilities are straightforward, covering improvements such as stronger parries, additional health recovery and greater headshot damage. That simplicity becomes an advantage because passive skill points can be reallocated at a lantern for a moderate catalyst cost.

This flexibility is central to the game’s more relaxed character-building approach. Rather than choosing a permanent build early, players can adjust their skills to suit a weapon, enemy or boss encounter. The system makes experimentation practical, especially for players who find more complicated Soulslike progression systems difficult to manage.

Exploration beyond the main route

The main story follows a linear path, but the world supports Metroidvania-style backtracking. New abilities open previously inaccessible doors, remove barriers and allow William to cross gaps with a grappling hook.

Optional routes reward exploration with weapon upgrade materials, hand grenades and equippable amber stones. The extra areas are not mandatory, but they are valuable for anyone who enjoys testing different equipment, skills and tactics. Players considering a dedicated home setup can also browse RETROCADE’s arcade machine buying guide for advice on choosing the right gaming space.

Side stories in a devastated world

Valor Mortis does not rely on quest markers to guide every step. Its quest system still separates main and side objectives clearly, giving players enough structure without removing the need to explore.

Some of the most memorable missions focus on the ordinary people destroyed by the plague. One begins with a crying baby and leads to a bloodstained crib with no child inside. Other stories involve a corpse transformed into a scarecrow and the ghosts of a family left behind in an abandoned home.

These smaller stories add emotional weight to the combat and exploration. The world is not populated by active armies or crowded towns; its history is communicated through what remains.

A difficulty curve with sharp edges

Standard enemies generally strike a good balance. Deaths happen, but areas can often be cleared within two or three attempts without losing many catalysts. Bosses and mini-bosses are less consistent.

General Lothaire, the first boss, proved especially punishing, with a single missed parry capable of removing most of William’s health. The next boss fell on the second attempt, while a mini-boss encountered around the same period required six tries. The challenge therefore varies considerably from encounter to encounter.

Even so, the game’s open routes, hidden stories and striking war-torn scenery make failure easier to accept. Its overall design prioritises experimentation and forward momentum over uncompromising punishment.

First-person Soulslike impressions

After around 13 hours and four chapters, Valor Mortis presents a distinctive blend of brutal action, historical fantasy and subdued atmosphere. Its combat demands concentration, but flexible respecs, boss rewards and varied exploration prevent the experience from becoming exhausting.

The Napoleonic setting gives the game a strong identity, while the deserted landscapes create a strangely calm counterpoint to the violence. It is difficult, but usually not needlessly punishing; frightening, but more mournful than purely horrific. For players interested in unusual action games, it is a promising addition to the Soulslike field.

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