Ghostrunner studio's first-person soulslike Valor Mortis is out on Xbox, Game Pass and Steam

Valor Mortis, the first-person soulslike from Ghostrunner developer One More Level, came out on October 13. In a launch-day Xbox Wire post, the studio lists it on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Game Pass, with Xbox Play Anywhere support, and walks through how its combat fits together. The team also posted a launch note on Steam, where the store page names Lyrical Games and One More Level as publishers and shows the game at $39.99 in the US.

A plague, Napoleon and a second life

You play William, an Englishman who has turned against the monarchy and signs up with Napoleon’s army in the hope of a united Europe. He is killed for that belief, and the game picks up after his death, with a disease called the Crimson Plague spreading across the continent. Notes and echoes left by fallen soldiers, scattered through each level, fill in the army’s secrets and the history of the plague.

How the combat loop works

One More Level says the systems are designed to feed into one another. Sword attacks wear down an enemy’s posture, a meter the studio compares to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and a broken guard opens the way for heavy attacks or a finisher. Gunshots are for weak points, glowing growths the game calls lambent blisters, and landing those shots tops up William’s nephtoglobin resource. Ammunition is scarce, but defeated enemies often drop more.

A few rules matter early. An attack animation can’t be cancelled into a parry, so a swing has to be finished once it starts. A perfectly timed dodge briefly slows time, and countering straight after a block gives back the health lost while blocking. The Fire Transmutation sets enemies on fire, which leaves them open to finishers.

Builds and exploration

Builds revolve around Ambers, which are equipped at lantern checkpoints; leveling William raises how many can be slotted at once. The post highlights three. Marksman’s Bane lets William parry bullets and earn a pistol round for each one. Volatile End makes weak-point hits explode. Butcher’s Carnage turns melee hits into healing but locks out the Ferrofluid Flasks.

The studio also points to metroidvania-style level design, with abilities that open up earlier areas, multi-level combat arenas and villages full of shortcuts. Many Ambers and several optional mini-bosses sit away from the main route.

What comes next

In the Steam announcement, the team calls Valor Mortis its biggest game so far, says it has been in development for three years and puts the campaign at about 20 hours. It credits feedback from an open Steam playtest a year ago and a demo in June for changes to polish, performance and balance. The Deluxe Edition includes a major story DLC planned for next year along with cosmetic weapon skin packs. In an earlier Steam post about launch times, the studio said a New Game+ mode with tougher enemies will be added later this year, and that it would like to add full French voice acting at some point.

What we don’t know yet

Neither post gives a date for New Game+ or the story DLC, and the French voice track is described as a wish rather than a scheduled update.