Is Valor Mortis Worth It? Critics vs Players

Evidence-based review · scores read on 20 October 2026. Valor Mortis is a good, inventive first-person soulslike with a rough PC launch. Top critics average 80 and Steam players are 78% positive, which comes to 7.8 out of 10 on our formula after a small deduction for documented crashes.

This is a synthesis, not a playthrough: AFK Journal has not played the game. It is built on the OpenCritic and Metacritic aggregates, 1,932 Steam user reviews, five critic reviews read in full plus the scores listed on OpenCritic, and the developer's patch notes of 16 October. The calculation is shown in full further down.

One More Level, the Polish studio behind Ghostrunner, released Valor Mortis on 13 October for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It costs $39.99 on Steam, and Pure Xbox reports that it is a day-one title on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, so a large part of its audience did not have to buy it at all.

What do critics agree on?

The combat is the hook. Eurogamer calls the swordplay beautifully designed and says its basic thrill never fades across a runtime of roughly 20 hours. Shacknews admits it doubted that a studio known for Ghostrunner's speed would suit a slower soulslike, then says the skills translate well.

The guns are not decoration. Eurogamer explains that shooting the glowing plague weak spot on an enemy, which moves every time it respawns, opens it up for punishment, and that shotguns and a two-handed rifle trade power for exposure. Even IGN, which gives it 7/10, credits an arsenal of three melee weapons, three guns and three powers, each with its own upgrade tree, plus Amber modifiers that can change how a build plays.

The setting is the second point of agreement. Push Square describes the alternate history, in which Napoleon wins at Waterloo, as compelling, and calls the level design impeccable. Insider Gaming describes large interconnected areas, from a night-time village to a submerged town, and IGN singles out torn-up battlefields and a harbour of wrecked ships lifted into the air.

Where do critics split?

The scores run from 6 to 9, and the gap comes down to two things: how much the technical problems weigh, and the bosses.

On bosses, Eurogamer says there are not many but One More Level makes them count, and picks out two standout set pieces. IGN finds them few and often underwhelming, with some that are just tougher versions of ordinary enemies, and Insider Gaming says only four of them stayed with it over 20 hours.

Push Square, otherwise one of the warmer reviews, criticises the run-up to the final boss: very low health, no way to heal and inconsistent checkpoints, straight after a late stealth section. Shacknews dislikes how the dialogue lines run into each other and notes there is no audio language other than English. GameSpot's 6/10 is the low point on OpenCritic's list, and IGN says the platforming, which you might expect to be the Ghostrunner studio's strength, feels unpolished.

The story splits opinion too. Insider Gaming likes how direct it is compared with the deliberately obscure lore of most soulslikes, and calls the ending satisfying; IGN's verdict is that it is more vibes than substance.

What do Steam players say?

On 20 October, 1,511 of 1,932 Steam reviews were positive: 78.2%, rated Mostly Positive. English-language reviews are almost identical at 78.4% of 903. A week after launch, the all-time total and the recent window are effectively the same sample, and Steam already excludes off-topic review bombs from its score.

To see what sits behind the number, we counted keywords in the 80 most recent English negative reviews and the 80 most recent positive ones. Parrying came up in 26 negative reviews, mostly about timing windows and combat that leans too hard on it; bugs appeared in 19, crashes and performance in 11 each. In the positive reviews, combat was mentioned most often (27), followed by bosses (20) and story (18). It is a small keyword count, not a survey, but it matches the critics: the same combat system is the main reason people like the game and a common reason they do not.

Steam showed 1,429 people playing at 09:11 UTC on Tuesday 20 October, a European weekday morning. That figure leaves out everyone playing through Game Pass on Xbox or PC, and neither the developer nor the publisher has released sales or player totals.

How does Valor Mortis run on PC?

This is the weakest part of the launch. IGN's PC review reports hard crashes, pieces of the environment missing and a recurring launch problem that switched off the reviewer's PC. The developer's First Update on 16 October says it fixed some of the most common crashes across platforms, added a warning for outdated GPU drivers and removed progression blockers in Chapters 4 and 12, while further performance problems are still being investigated. Anyone who played the playtest or the demo is advised to delete the old GameUserSettings.ini file if they see stutters.

Note that both official targets assume upscaling, and at least one recent negative Steam review complains about having to rely on DLSS for an acceptable frame rate. On console, the full reviews we read did not report the same problems: Push Square reviewed on PS5 without mentioning crashes, though the patch notes say the fixes apply across platforms.

How we got to 7.8

Our formula weights critics at 70% and players at 30%: the OpenCritic Top Critic Average divided by 10, and the Steam share of positive reviews divided by 10, using the full total in the first 60 days.

Without the correction the game would round to 8.0 and the Great label, so the deduction matters and deserves an explanation. Crashes are documented by independent sources (IGN's PC review and the Steam reviews) and confirmed by the developer itself, while most critic reviews went up before launch and not all of them were played on PC. The Steam figure already reflects part of the problem, which is why we take off 0.2 rather than the 0.5 maximum. If the next patches fix stability, the correction goes at our 30-day recheck.

Should you buy Valor Mortis?

• Buy it if you like soulslikes and want a different perspective on them: the studio chose a $39.99 launch price rather than full price, and Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers already have it.
• Wait for more patches if you play on PC near the minimum spec, which only targets 30fps at 1080p on Low with upscaling, or if crashes would ruin a 20-hour campaign for you.
• Skip it if boss fights are the reason you play the genre, or if a combat system built around parry timing is not for you: both come up again and again in critic and player complaints.

If you want something similar, our Elden Ring Nightreign review covers FromSoftware's co-op take on the formula, the Hellraiser: Revival review looks at another first-person release from this October, and the Castlevania: Belmont's Curse review covers the month's other big dark-fantasy action release.

What we don't know yet

One More Level has not published a patch roadmap beyond saying that there is a lot more to come, and nobody has released sales figures or Game Pass player numbers. Insider Gaming says it was told before launch that boss difficulty was being rebalanced, so its view that the bosses are easy may not match the release build exactly. We will reread the scores in 30 days, or sooner if a large stability patch lands.