How the Supernatural Napoleonic War Tale of Valor Mortis Became a Lyrical Game / First Look: "A Place No One Else Touches"

Lyrical Games will make its market debut this week with the Soulslike game "Valor Mortis." Set in a supernatural version of 19th-century Europe, the game lets players take on the role of William Dawes (voiced by James Alexander), a reanimated British soldier from the Grande Armée who wields both Napoleonic-era weapons and devastating arms.

Lyrical Games is coming out this week with the Soulslike game 'Valor Mortis'.

Set in a supernatural reimagining of 19th-century Europe, Valor Mortis lets players assume the role of William Dowsett (voiced by James Alexander), a resurrected English soldier of the Grand Army who wields both Napoleonic-era weapons and devastating supernatural powers. The game also stars Vincent Castle as the legendary Napoleon Bonaparte and Jennifer English as The Shrike, one of the key figures in the resistance against Napoleon's war. RELATED STORIES Quavo Says Migos Bandmate's Death Has Reduced His 'Friction' With Offset: 'It Doesn't Get Harder'

Developed by Ghostrunner studio One More Level, Valor Mortis is the first of several titles in the works at indie video game publisher Lyrical Media, and the game's ambitious first-person take sets the high bar for what Lyrical plans to produce from here. Popular in Variety

"One More Level specializes in first-person action, so they understood the problem better than anyone," Lyrical Games president Blake Rochkind told Variety. The main challenge is that Soulslikes is built around reading your opponent: spacing, telegraphing, knowing exactly where you are in relation to the enemy's swing. Third Party Camera gives you this for free. In first person, you lose a lot of that awareness, so the team had to rebuild it. They put a lot of effort into the timing specifically on the sequential window, plus locking, audio cues, and tap feedback, so a perfect fairy feels as readable as a third-person game. Another obstacle was speed. Ghostrunner is all about speed, and Valor Mortis is deliberately slower and more methodical.

Valor Mortis launches Tuesday for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and for PC via Steam for $39.99. Notably, the title will be available on day one for those with an Xbox Game Pass subscription, though Rochkind declined to share details on how the deal will be made, while making the game available for purchase on all platforms.

Watch below for more from Variety's interview with Lyrical Games' Rochkind.

I knew I wanted to work on One More Level within five minutes of Ghostrunner coming out in 2020. Strong game feel is the rarest talent in the medium, and when you play something that feels really great (and play a lot), you know it right away. It took a while for the stars to align, as they made Ghostrunner 2 before they were ready to tackle it. Valor Mortis' pitch ticked all the boxes. You had a proven team with unique expertise, working in a genre with a large audience, but with two real twists: a first-person camera and an environment that no one else has touched. That's Lyrical Games' thesis in a nutshell: modest budgets, unique takes on proven genres, and genuine partnerships with developers. If this game is one thing for us, I hope we can get our chips into talented teams with a strong vision.

After the announcement went well, we knew we had something here, so the question was how do we add fuel to the fire. Vincent Castle was truly Napoleon's dream actor. He is not as much of a regular character on screen. He is a voice in William's head that speaks to him almost like a father to a son. That role lives or dies on presence, and Vincent Cassel has a kind of controlled menace that's hard to find. His landing was a big moment for us. Similar to Jennifer English. We had a very meaty role in The Shrike and he was the only name on the list for us. In both cases it helped that the announcement of the game went well enough for us to get our hands on both. Finally, James Alexander plays the whole game as William and I hope that puts him on the map even more than he already is. For a new IP, a cast like that tells players that we take the story as seriously as the combat.

That's OML's point of view, and it's one of the things that sold me on the game. Fantasy Soulslikes are everywhere, so this setting immediately made it stand out. The Napoleonic era is also a natural occasion for horror. You have this charismatic figure who promises a united Europe, and millions of soldiers who believed in this idea and died for it. Putting a plague and body horror on top of that allows the game to ask a very dark question: what would you sacrifice for power, and for another dream? This is the course most players know for the wide putts, which make it much more uncomfortable to roll. It is also simply symbolic, which has gone a long way in favor of people.

William is a young Englishman who is disillusioned with the monarchy and volunteers for Napoleon because he believes in the idea of a united Europe. Then he dies for it. The game opens with him waking up on the battlefield with the plague coursing through his veins, though he hasn't quite "turned". That corruption is both his curse and his power. It's how he fights, and he gets stronger by absorbing what he defeats. Napoleon is in his head guiding him, and halfway through, he's joined by another voice that takes him somewhere else entirely. So the journey is really about who William is fighting for, and what is left of him by the end.

Shortly after the announcement in August 2025, we conducted an initial public broadcast test. This was a huge plus for the game and significantly influenced the development of One More Level from there. The Next Fest demo this summer was only a few months before launch, and of course One More Level took a lot away from it, but playtesting just revolutionized the game, and we're very grateful that so many players have stuck with the game for over a year since and helped make the game what it is today. It's definitely an approach we hope to take again with our games in the future.