The dark fantasy visual style of Lords of the Fallen is extremely eye-catching, and the game’s art director, Alex Chaudret, has revealed that the inspirations behind it include the classic manga Berserk. The insight came as part of a developer AMA hosted on Reddit earlier today.
Lords of the Fallen has frequently been compared to the Dark Souls series, to the point that the developers have referenced their own goal of making it Dark Souls 4.5. However, while FromSoftware’s games have typically adhered closer to a style of warped grandeur, Lords of the Fallen features more in the way of grotesqueries, and Chaudret explained how that came down to the three design pillars of Darkness, Torment, and Fantasy.
Those pillars were further enhanced by the personal inspirations that Chaudret brought to the project. Chief among those he cited is Berserk, which, in addition to Lords of the Fallen, also provided inspiration to Dark Souls and countless other dark fantasy works. Chaudret also referenced the seinen mangas Claymore and Blame!.
Beyond manga, the game also takes cues from the work of H. R. Giger, which you should be familiar with thanks to the Alien franchise, and Zdzisław Beksiński, whose work has also informed the likes of Scorn and The Medium. Chaudret further namedropped performance artist Olivier de Sagazan as the inspiration for the shadow realm of Umbral.
From that diverse mix of ideas, “the universe of the game itself becomes our only reference, with its own codes and art mechanics,” he explained.
The full AMA is wide-ranging, diving into the mechanics, story, and combat design ethos of Lords of the Fallen, so it’s well worth taking a look through if you’re interested in the game, which will be available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S from October 13, 2023. You can read our preview here.
Meanwhile, though the original creator of Berserk, Kentaro Miura, passed on in 2021, his friend and collaborator Kouji Mori is working to complete the story.
