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Napoleon's soldiers already had plenty to worry about. Long marches, brutal battles and questionable decisions from their commanders were more than enough to make military service unpleasant. Valor Mortis decides to improve morale by adding a mysterious plague, supernatural horrors and the occasional monster that looks like it escaped from a particularly disturbing medical textbook.
The new game from Ghostrunner developer One More Level arrives on October 13, taking players into a nightmarish version of Napoleonic Europe. You play as William, a soldier who returns from the dead and discovers that the army he once served has undergone some rather alarming changes. Armed with a sabre, a pistol and powers that have very little to do with conventional warfare, he sets out to investigate the disaster.
The premise is wonderfully strange, but Valor Mortis has more to prove than its ability to make historical uniforms look terrifying.
Most games set during the Napoleonic Wars are interested in battlefield tactics, political ambition or the effectiveness of organised musket fire. Valor Mortis is more concerned with what happens when those same battlefields become breeding grounds for unnatural creatures.
The contrast works remarkably well. Military camps, abandoned streets and ruined buildings retain enough historical detail to feel convincing, while the infected soldiers wandering through them make it obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. Their twisted bodies and unsettling movements give the enemies a disturbing appearance without relying entirely on enormous monsters.
Exploration benefits from that atmosphere. You move through locations where ordinary soldiers once lived and fought, searching for clues while trying to avoid becoming the latest casualty of a war that should probably have ended already.
The story itself is less impressive than its surroundings. William's investigation provides a reason to keep travelling, but several developments are easy to anticipate, and some characters never become particularly interesting. The world often tells a more compelling story through its environments than the dialogue manages to deliver.
Valor Mortis borrows the demanding combat philosophy of soulslikes but makes one significant change: everything happens through William's eyes. There's no convenient camera hovering behind the hero to reveal exactly what every nearby enemy is doing.
That decision gives the swordplay a distinctive feel. You need to watch an opponent's movements, recognise an incoming strike and decide whether to dodge, parry or counterattack. When a blade comes directly toward the camera, successfully deflecting it feels particularly rewarding.
William's equipment provides more flexibility than a sabre alone. His pistol helps deal with threats at a distance, while supernatural abilities offer additional ways to control encounters. Switching between these tools becomes increasingly important as enemies grow more dangerous.
The difficulty comes from managing all those options while maintaining awareness of your surroundings. Fighting one opponent can feel precise and satisfying, but groups are much harder to handle. A soldier approaching from outside your field of view can interrupt an otherwise successful fight, leaving you wondering whether you made a mistake or simply needed eyes in the back of your head.
Anyone familiar with One More Level might expect Valor Mortis to encourage constant movement and aggressive attacks. Ghostrunner certainly trained players to solve most problems by moving faster than their enemies could react.
Valor Mortis asks for a different approach. Rushing into combat without studying the situation usually ends badly, particularly before you've learned how long enemy attacks take to land. Patience and positioning matter more than maintaining an impressive pace.
The combat becomes more interesting as William develops new abilities. Different enemies encourage different combinations of weapons and powers, giving players room to experiment with their preferred approach. Some encounters reward careful defence, while others become easier once you start taking advantage of the full arsenal.
Unfortunately, the opening stretch doesn't always make a convincing first impression. The difficulty can feel harsh before players have access to enough tools, and certain enemy combinations are awkward to manage. The challenge becomes more enjoyable as the mechanics open up, although occasional frustrating fights remain.
The game's larger enemies make excellent use of its unusual perspective. Looking up at a towering creature while trying to identify its next attack creates a sense of scale that third-person action games sometimes struggle to match.
The strongest boss fights build on that feeling with readable attack patterns and satisfying opportunities to retaliate. Each failed attempt teaches you something useful, and eventually defeating an enemy that seemed overwhelming is a genuine achievement.
Other battles are less successful. Huge opponents can move outside the camera's view at close range, making it difficult to follow their attacks. When a fight demands precise reactions, losing sight of an important movement can make failure feel arbitrary rather than deserved.
Technical rough edges occasionally add to the frustration, and the uneven difficulty means not every encounter reaches the same standard. Valor Mortis is most enjoyable when its demanding combat feels fair, rather than when players are struggling to work out what just hit them.
Valor Mortis has an advantage over many games borrowing the soulslike formula: its setting is interesting enough to make exploration enjoyable in its own right. The mixture of historical locations, diseased soldiers and supernatural threats gives the adventure a recognisable personality.
One More Level also deserves credit for experimenting with first-person melee combat instead of following the genre's usual conventions. The swordplay can be excellent, supernatural powers add variety, and some boss encounters are genuinely memorable.
There are clear weaknesses. The narrative doesn't always deliver on the atmosphere, enemy groups can expose the limitations of the camera, and the difficulty occasionally feels more irritating than satisfying. Players expecting the polished consistency of the genre's best examples may find the rougher sections difficult to overlook.
Still, there's something appealing about a game willing to make such an unusual combination work. Valor Mortis offers a strange, dangerous journey through a version of history that Napoleon would probably prefer to leave out of his memoirs. Considering how his actual military career ended, that's saying something.
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