Hexworks and CI Games are working on a sequel to the 2023 action RPG Lords Of The Fallen, which itself is a sequel to the 2014 action RPG Lords Of The Fallen. The release is scheduled for 2026. Will the recent Lords Of The Fallen be also called Lords Of The Fallen? Will it build on the invigorating innovations of Lords Of The Fallen, or will it seek to recapture the nostalgic charm of Lords Of The Fallen? Maybe in ten years we’ll create a “Lords Of The Fallen Game Ranking” list with just one entry. I’m pretty sure that in 10 years, generative AI plagiarism will make everything interchangeable anyway.
The recent Lords Of The Fallen – again not to be confused with Lords Of The Fallen, let alone Lords Of The Fallen – is now called Project 3. It appears on the recent CI Games strategic reportnoticed by Insider games. It will run on Unreal Engine 5 and feature such “gameplay improvements” as “increased optionality of game modes, a more commercial art style and narrative, increased production values”, which I would roughly translate as “a greater selection of modes, an art style and narrative that will appeal to more players, and an overall sleeker look and feel with, I don’t know, catchier menu fonts and such.” It will have a single-player campaign with full co-op “progress together” and we can expect a corresponding announcement in 2025. Oh, and Epic made sure to make it available exclusively on the Epic Games Store on PC. Sad trombone!
Resident RPS Soulsliker Edders wasn’t particularly fond of Lords Of The Fallen, stating that “the magic of hopping between lands can’t stop this Soulslike from getting on your nerves,” but rated it higher than Rich Stanton’s Lords Of The Fallen summarized as “a game so mediocre you don’t want to play it.” However, CI Games believes that the series has plenty of potential – in the report they describe it as one of the “two main evergreen franchises”, adding that the 2023 sequel accounted for 72 percent of the company’s revenue in the first half of 2024.
CI’s other “major evergreen brand” is the stealth shooter Sniper Ghost Warrior, the next “major version” of which is scheduled to arrive in 2027, again powered by Unreal Engine 5. CI is collaborating with an unnamed external studio on this game. It will be a combination of a survival game and a shooter, and work on the game has been “accelerated” by reusing several elements from two other projects: “Project Survive” – described elsewhere in the report as “a new IP of the survival genre” – and “Next SGW”.
We haven’t written much about the Sniper Ghost Warrior series lately, although Alice0 (RPS alone) made a nice play on words about 2018’s Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts, which had a smaller focus. I think the last game I played was a preview of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 back in… 2016? I wasn’t particularly thrilled, but then again, at least I can write about several Sniper Ghost Warrior games at once without feeling like I’m the butt of the joke Who’s first?.
And finally, CI Games has a “major new action RPG” from Underdog Studio that will apply the “systems and architecture” from the latest Lords Of The Fallen game and whatever the next Lords Of The Fallen game is called. The film is currently in pre-production with a compact team and will hopefully go into production in tardy 2025, at which time Hexworks should be able to assist through “inter-studio talent allocation.” Everything is going according to plan, the premiere will take place in 2028.
