Back in November, I reviewed Lords of the Fallen (LOTF) on PS4 and enjoyed it. I actually took the game up on PC not long after that review as I finished building a new gaming rig — and my goodness did the game look great, by the way. But, I was one of many who had some serious bugs to contend with, so I let things simmer, waiting for patches.
Several patches later, including one earlier this month, I decided to pick it up again and restart my campaign. I went the Warrior route with a heavy emphasis on Faith. After about eighteen hours in, I just defeated Beast, and it’s at this point that the new DLC, Ancient Labyrinth, becomes available. The reason for having players “wait” until beating Beast, I suspect, is because Ancient Labyrinth provides a stout challenge thanks to new enemies and a hellaciously difficult new Rhogar Lord known as The Keeper.
To access the DLC once you have purchased and installed it, you need to defeat Beast and then talk to the Crafter. A new conversation option pops up and he can transport you, and himself, to this new area. Upon arriving you’ll find yourself in a small, relatively secluded area with a locked chest and a save point. Then you reach the top of some stairs which overlook an amazing series of concentric circles with lightning and “asteroid” things and other mayhem flying about. CI Games’ definitely has a talent for making some impressive dark fantasy settings, and this Labyrinth, which is actually a massive library in the ‘limbo’ space between the human and demonic realms, is no exception.
At the bottom of the stairs nearest the entrance to this hauntingly inviting labyrinth is a new character who’s got a problem that he’d like you to solve. I’ll avoid spoiling the details, but it’s a basic search and destroy quest that you encounter on several occasions in the “original” game. And so the combat begins — as soon as you walk through the first door Harkyn encounters two of the new enemies. These undead soldiers act as guards to the library as some of the new audio logs will tell you (there are five or six new audio logs to be found). One new enemy looks female and is a flying banshee, who is actually easily taken down with a couple of Projectile shots from the Gauntlet (doing 360 damage per hit for me). Her ability to teleport and stun you can be a problem if you do not act quickly, though. The other enemies are skeletons, some of whom move fast, others are slow, but they all have a high HP. My fully leveled Quake attack helped a lot, but obviously that doesn’t regenerate very quickly. They’ll attack with Greataxes, daggers, and bows with electrically explosive charges. Another new enemy is a large brute that teleports rapidly and packs a mighty punch with what appears to be a Greathammer.
Dealing with tough enemies is par for the course, and it wouldn’t be Lords of the Fallen without it. While traversing the narrow hallways of the Labyrinth, you’ll also encounter a few puzzles — locked doors, touchplates, and some switches that rotate the adjacent concentric circle, revealing additional paths. You’ll discover new armor (or well, it was new to me at least), the Consecrated armor kit, which is pretty good, but I don’t think I’ll use it much. Anyway, after fighting and figuring your way through three circles, it’s boss fight time.
It became very apparent to me within the first hour of fighting The Keeper that this DLC was pretty much intended for players on NG+ or NG++. He’s really difficult, and although when I finally beat him about four hours later I had four of my six health potions left, I still felt that, overall, it was the hardest boss fight I had personally experienced since Ares in God of War (on God Mode). The first two of four phases of The Keeper are the hardest, and I liked how he got easier as the battle wore on, quite honestly. NG+ or NG++ players might wish the fight only got harder, but I was happy with the ‘start super tough and wind down’ approach here. The Keeper’s full-stage, insta-death attack was super annoying until I read up and watched Let’s Play videos (naturally everyone was NG+ or higher) on how the heck to avoid it as a Warrior character. Anyway, it was really satisfying to defeat it.
Speaking of satisfaction… regarding the DLC as a whole, for $8, I felt it was on the right side of the ‘worth it’ equation, although for anyone not itching to get back into LOTF, it’s safe to wait for an inevitable sale (or re-release GOTYE or Ultimate Edition). The Labyrinth level design is basic, and brief. The new enemies and gear are pretty cool, but for highly ranked players, especially once they figure out how to avoid The Keeper’s insta-kill attack, it won’t really last that long (depending a little bit on how thorough they want to be in exploring the small secrets of the Labyrinth) and you might not come away with a whole lot. As someone who has really grown to enjoy this game, I felt the DLC was worth the cost, and ahem, the trouble of the boss fight.
Perhaps not too surprisingly, there are some bugs and/or weirdness with the DLC. Some of this is kind of anecdotal or just “happened once,” so take it for what you will, but I thought it worth mentioning here. First, there are some odd floating items and clipping issues; these are in the main game from time to time too, but after another patch and dev time for this DLC it’s a little disappointing to still have these minor nuisances here. The Quake attack is entirely ineffective against the final boss, which seemed really strange/unexplained to me; probably not a bug, but, strange nonetheless. Speaking of strange, I also experienced a half dozen or so CTDs (Crash To Desktop) while battling the boss, where in the previous twenty hours of play I had not had that issue. CTDs at anytime are really annoying, but during a lengthy and very challenging boss fight? Yikes. In one other instance, my button-mapping got mixed up while in game for several seconds.
Ultimately, much like the original game, the good and great things about Ancient Labyrinth outweigh the bad. It might not be all that long depending on your playstyle or fix all of the issues folks have had, but it’s a seamless addition to the LOTF universe and, depending on your skill level and thoroughness, can provide a solid 2-4 hours of additional, engaging, gameplay.
To the summary…
