She's a fierce warrior, but she's crying tears of blood. After a tense battle of graceful sweeping sword arcs - and me frantically dodging - she sprouts a set of scarlet wings, flies upwards, and proceeds to rain down hell.
This is Pieta, the first proper boss in Lords of the Fallen after the tutorial. Or, as I like to call her, Budget Malenia. It's abundantly clear where developer Hexworks has taken inspiration, leaning into the most popular aspects of FromSoftware's Souls games - here Elden Ring's most celebrated encounter. Pieta is emblematic of the game as a whole: Lords of the Fallen looks like Souls, it plays like Souls, but it's an inferior imitation that's rough around the edges.
If the name seems familiar, you may remember the 2014 Lords of the Fallen from developer Deck13 and publisher CI Games that also attempted to replicate the Souls experience. I went back to that for the purpose of this review and it certainly hasn't aged well with its lumbering combat and generic visuals. This new Lords of the Fallen is a complete reimagining from Hexworks (once more published by CI Games), with improved combat and a fresh story.