It didn’t much of this year’s Summer Game Fest to realise that, in racing to escape the orbit of GTA 6, the games industry has created a new problem: a September 2026 so packed with releases that it’s going to take some dedication – not to mention time and money – for players to get through even a fraction of them all. So it was only a matter of time before someone blinked. Which brings us to Ghostrunner studio One More Level, perhaps the first of many to announce it’s shifting out of the scrum, with its promising Napoleonic first-person Soulslike Valor Mortis now set to release this October.
More specifically, Valor Mortis has now jettisoned its original 24th September launch date in favour of a 13th October arrival on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC – placing it in the current comparative void (until everyone else decides on a calendar rejig too, that is) between September’s crush and GTA 6’s all-consuming 19th November release. Announcing the date change, One More Level explained, “September has become absolutely stacked with incredible looking games. We knew this was a possibility, but when you are in a partner showcase as we were, dates get locked weeks in advance. We want to give Valor Mortis (and your wallet) some room to breathe.”
Additionally, the studio says it’ll be using the extra time before release to act on feedback generated by Valor Mortis’ newly released Steam demo. That demo, if you’re curious, includes two chapters: one taking place on a grim battlefield and introducing the game’s core combat system, while the second is a mid-game level that sees players using protagonist William’s transmutation powers to traverse a destroyed bridge to the Lighthouse. This, it notes, features a steeper difficulty curve, offering a taste of the challenges ahead.
Valor Mortis was unveiled last August and whisks players to an alternate-history version of the 19th century. Here, the Napoleonic Wars are raging and you – a soldier in Bonaparte’s Grande Armée – are regrettably dead. Until, that is, you awaken on a battlefield ravaged by a mysterious supernatural plague, only to find your former friends and foes have been twisted into awful abominations.
Eurogamer’s Dom Peppiatt spent some time with Valor Mortis at last year’s Gamescom and liked what they saw. “It’s compelling, gratifying, and it will get its hooks into your brain and make you think ‘OK, I’m not putting this pad down until I’ve beaten this monster’,” Dom wrote. “One More Level, indeed.”
