Souls games have been around since the late 00s, and they’ve all had a recurring theme: They’re all from third-person perspectives. Valor Mortis is bucking the trend in style, and I had a chance to talk to the devs about why they went in this direction.
Valor Mortis‘ first-person viewpoint threw me off the first time I played it. There was a weird juxtaposition that my brain couldn’t comprehend about an FPS and a Soulslike game intertwining. The result is a work of art, though, and I chatted with One More Level about how it all came about.
FPS Soulslikes Need to Be a Thing
In an interview with One More Level’s Szymon Bryła (the company’s Head of Studio and CEO), I asked if there was any inspiration behind the decision to make Valor Mortis a first-person Soulslike:
“When the vision of what Valor Mortis ultimately is now was taking shape, we felt that something was missing that would sort of unlock the stream of creative ideas-you know, that kind of moment when suddenly everyone in the room says, ‘this, this is exactly it, let’s go with this.’ I must admit that we had some difficult moments back when work was progressing, but we knew that something bold, groundbreaking, and at the same time coherent with what and how we do things as One More Level was missing. That “something” became the FPP Soulslike.
The decision to make a soulslike also stems from the fact that we are huge fans of this genre and the achievements of FromSoftware, and, in short, just like we once wanted to have our own cyberpunk game, here we wanted to make our own FPP soulslike.
The fact that there are practically no such games on the market is and was fascinating, but at the same time, it posed a significant risk in every respect. I am glad that the game’s announcement in 2025 showed that we were right and made the right design decision.”
Szymon explained to me that the studios’ previous work on Ghostrunner (also an FPS) made more logistical sense for the team, having that prior experience, and that ‘All Soulslike games are TPP [third-person perspective].’
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It seems others are taking notice of Valor Mortis’ efforts, with the newly announced Guns of Eschaton being an apocalyptic FPS Soulslike!
Make sure you watch the Valor Mortis release date trailer, featuring more deadly footage.
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Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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