You play as a soldier named William in Napoleon’s army. During one of his many raids, Napoleon somehow got a hold of a virus that turns his men into Resident Evil-like monsters who lose all their humanity and kill anyone who isn’t one of them.

For whatever reason, William was spared this fate and is now being forced to fight off his former comrades while trying to figure out what Napoleon’s role in all of this is and survive. To make things more interesting, there also appears to be some supernatural things afoot, which work in William’s favor because they allow him to shoot fire from his hand.

As intriguing and mysterious as the main story is, the gameplay is where things shine. The second the demo booted up, I couldn’t help but compare it to BioShock for a handful of reasons. The obvious is that it’s a horror story told in a dated period that can often be romanticized when looking back at it. While the other can be seen in how the combat plays.

One of the stronger things this game leans toward is the horror aspects of it. Valor Mortis is extremely gory; this can be seen in everything that’s thrown at you. Since it’s in first person, a lot of the attacks you perform feel a lot more personal, and this is especially true when you perform an execution on one of your enemies. Even though you’re fighting for your survival, you can’t help but feel a bit dirty in the process.

Of course, there’s the Soulslike aspect of this game. After all, it’s one of the main lures when trying it out. It has all of the core mechanics you’d expect in the genre, including a blocking, parrying, and stamina system for you to keep track of. One of the best things about Valor Mortis is its parrying system. It’s never easy to do, so being rewarded for it only feels right. Whenever I could successfully land one, the game would go into slow-mo. If I attacked immediately after, it would perform a gruesome execution that made me feel like a killing machine. But if you didn’t, you’d end up dying and be taken back to Valor Mortis’ version of a bonfire, and need to collect the currency you dropped when you died.

One of the things that can often be annoying when playing Soulslike games is investing points into a proper build. Thankfully, Valor Mortis takes out a lot of the headache that comes with that. The skill tree set is straightforward to understand and does so in a way that doesn’t talk down to you. Unfortunately, I couldn’t min-max my character in the demo, but I can see how this can be done once the whole game is released.

Is there any first-person soulslike out there? Does that even work? Very curious to see what this’ll turn out