If you have been following the soulslike genre for a while, you already know the formula. Third-person camera, a stamina bar, punishing bosses, and bonfires or their equivalent scattered across a grim world. Valor Mortis takes that same formula and flips one big thing on its head: the camera. This is a first-person soulslike, and after months of hands-on previews from major gaming outlets, it is becoming clear that the shift in perspective changes a lot more than you might expect.
Yes, Valor Mortis Is a First-Person Soulslike
To answer the question directly, yes, Valor Mortis is built entirely around a first-person perspective, and it is a genuine soulslike underneath that camera angle, not just a shooter with soulslike branding. You play as William, a soldier of Napoleon’s Grande Armée who wakes up in a pile of dead soldiers after being resurrected by an unknown force. A mysterious plague is sweeping across Europe, turning soldiers into monsters, and William himself carries the same corrupting power.
The game is developed by One More Level, the studio behind Ghostrunner. Combat, exploration, and progression all follow familiar soulslike structure. Enemies telegraph their attacks, checkpoints called Lanterns work like bonfires, and dying sends you back to your last rest point while respawning the enemies around you. If you have played Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring, the bones of the system will feel instantly familiar.
What Makes Valor Mortis Different From Other Soulslikes
The genre has gotten crowded over the last few years, and a lot of games blur together. Here is what sets Valor Mortis apart based on what previewers have said after hands-on time with the game.
1. The First-Person Camera Changes Everything
Most soulslikes stick to third-person for a reason. It gives you a wide view of enemy positioning and makes reading attack animations easier. Valor Mortis throws that convention out and builds combat entirely around a close, personal first-person view instead. According to hands-on previews, this actually makes players feel more aware of enemies and more in control of their own movements, not less.
One preview from PCGamesN put it simply: this is the first soulslike they immediately enjoyed, largely because of how natural the first-person combat feels once you get into it. If you already have thousands of hours in first-person shooters, this may be the soulslike that finally clicks for you.
2. Dual-Wielding Sword and Gun or Magic
Instead of just carrying a weapon and a shield, Valor Mortis has you dual-wielding a sword in one hand and either a firearm or a supernatural power in the other. You can switch what you carry in your off hand depending on the fight, mixing a pistol for hitting weak points with a Bioshock-style flame attack that spews fire directly from your palm. This gives combat a rhythm that borrows from first-person shooters while still keeping the core parry, dodge, and stamina management systems that define the genre.
Ammo for firearms is deliberately limited, so this is not meant to play like a shooter. It is closer to a soulslike wearing an FPS costume, using guns and magic as tools rather than a crutch.
3. Traversal With a Ghostrunner Touch
One More Level did not leave their Ghostrunner roots behind. Valor Mortis includes dashes and light parkour elements that give you more mobility than the average soulslike. This traversal layer adds a bit of speed and flow to exploration and combat positioning, which is a nice callback for anyone who played Ghostrunner and loved its movement.
4. A Setting Nobody Else Is Using
Most soulslikes lean on dark fantasy kingdoms, gothic castles, or crumbling empires. Valor Mortis instead goes with an alternate history version of Napoleonic Europe, blending real historical figures with body horror and Lovecraftian monsters. Napoleon himself communicates with William telepathically throughout the game, offering encouragement as you fight through infected soldiers and worse. The art direction draws on early 19th-century military aesthetics mixed with gothic horror, which previewers have described as genuinely striking and unlike anything else in the genre.
5. Familiar Systems Underneath
Despite everything new, the core soulslike loop is intact. You collect a currency from fallen enemies that gets spent at Lanterns, the game’s version of bonfires. Healing works like an Estus Flask, with limited charges that refill at checkpoints. Bosses are large, brutal, and require pattern recognition to beat. If you strip away the first-person camera and the setting, the underlying structure is very much Dark Souls influenced, which should reassure genre veterans that this is not a first-person shooter pretending to be a soulslike.
Should You Pre-Order Valor Mortis?
Based on the hands-on previews so far, Valor Mortis is shaping up to be one of the more interesting soulslikes in recent years, not because it reinvents the genre’s core systems, but because the first-person perspective genuinely changes how combat feels. Multiple previewers who normally struggle with third-person soulslikes have come away saying this is the version of the genre that finally clicked for them.
If a first-person, Napoleonic-era horror soulslike with dual-wielded swords, guns, and supernatural powers sounds like your kind of game, it is worth locking in your copy ahead of launch. For the full breakdown of the release date, platforms, editions, and pricing, check out our Valor Mortis pre-order guide and grab your copy from Driffle at the best price.
