Lords of the Fallen's Condition is Due to Switch to Unreal Engine 5 [Update: CI Games CEO Comments]

Update

Marek Tyminski, president of CI Games, the publisher of Lords of the Fallen, posted a message on X that is most likely intended to reassure investors. It reads:

Original news (October 15)

Lords of the Fallen, a soulslike action RPG that represents a reboot of a 2014 game, was one of the most anticipated releases of the fall. Unfortunately, the game's debut was spoiled by numerous technical issues. Now, a person claiming to be one of the game's developers tries to explain this state of affairs. It was published by an anonymous account on 4chan. Usually we ignore news from this source, but this time we decided to make an exception, because the information provided in the post, in our opinion, sounds very convincing and they are similarly assessed by players on Reddit.

1. According to this post, the main source of problems is the switch to Unreal Engine 5.0.
2. Work on the game started in 2018 and for many years it was created on Unreal Engine 4.
3. Good progress and great potential of the project were to make CI Games and Hexworks too ambitious and in 2022 the team decided to switch to Unreal Engine 5. This broke many elements of the game. To make matters worse, there were no people on the team with experience working with UE5. As a result, the developers were forced to cut some elements and simplify others.
4. A good example of this is the network mode. On UE4 it worked flawlessly, but the switch to Unreal Engine 5 spoiled everything. That's why this gameplay variant has so many problems nowadays.
5. Hexworks was aware of the poor technical condition of the game, but CI Games executives rejected the developers' requests to delay the release by a year.. This is because they were concerned about investor reaction and competing with the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
6. The game is reportedly selling very well so far - it has already found more than a million buyers.. CI Games, however, is said to be concerned about returns due to poor technical condition.
7. The poor reception was supposed to make CI Games' management finally listen to the developers. Currently, the team is fully focused on fixing the game and it shouldn't take long to remedy the most serious problems.

The post also included interesting information about the size of the team working on the game. Initially, it was handled by about a hundred developers. However, the scale of the project grew, additional employees were needed. It was decided that it would be cheaper to outsource than to increase employment at Hexworks, so a total of more than 400 people helped with the work, including from Turkey, India and several European countries.

All this sounds reasonable, but given the source of the revelations, they should be approached with great caution. The alleged developer also mentions that there are two expansions planned. One will explore the world of dreams, and the other will tell the story of two warring kingdoms. If such DLCs are indeed announced in the future, it will increase the likelihood that all these reports of problems are true.

1. Lords of the Fallen on Steam
2. Lords of the Fallen - game guide
3. Lords of the Fallen - official website

Lords of the Fallen

October 13, 2023

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