Vincent Cassel Voices Napoleon in 'Valor Mortis', Lyrical Games' Debut

Lyrical Games enters the market this week with "Valor Mortis," a first-person Soulslike set in a supernatural reimagining of 19th-century Europe, priced at $39.99 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam. The title will also be available on Day 1 to Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

The game casts players as William Dowsett, a resurrected English soldier of the Grande Armée voiced by James Alexander, who wields Napoleonic-era weaponry alongside supernatural powers. Vincent Cassel stars as Napoleon Bonaparte and Jennifer English plays The Shrike, a key figure in the resistance to Napoleon's war.

One More Level, the Polish studio behind "Ghostrunner," developed the title. It is the first of multiple projects planned at Lyrical Media's indie publishing label, and its ambition sets the standard for what the company intends to produce.

How do you build a Soulslike in first person?

The genre's core mechanics posed the biggest design problem. "One More Level specializes in first-person action, so they understood the problem better than anyone," Lyrical Games chief Blake Rochkind told Variety. "The core challenge is that Soulslikes are built on reading your opponent: spacing, telegraphs, knowing exactly where you are relative to an enemy's swing. A third-person camera gives you that for free."

The studio rebuilt that awareness from scratch. The team spent extensive time on the parry window, lock-on, audio cues and hit feedback, so a perfect parry feels as readable as it does in a third-person game. Pace presented a second hurdle. "Ghostrunner is all about speed, and Valor Mortis is deliberately slower and more methodical," Rochkind said.

Why did Lyrical bet on this pitch?

Rochkind decided he wanted to work with One More Level within five minutes of playing "Ghostrunner" in 2020, though the partnership waited until the studio finished "Ghostrunner 2." The pitch for "Valor Mortis" matched his publishing thesis exactly:

• Midtier budgets
• Unique takes on proven genres
• Genuine partnership with developers

The pitch carried "two real twists: a first-person camera and a setting nobody else is touching," Rochkind said. "If this game says one thing about us, I hope it's that we'll push our chips in on talented teams with a strong point of view."

How did Cassel land the role of Napoleon?

Napoleon does not appear on screen in the conventional sense. He is a voice in William's head, speaking to him almost like a father to a son. "That role lives or dies on presence, and Vincent Cassel has a kind of controlled menace that's hard to find," Rochkind said. "Landing him was a big moment for us."

English was, in Rochkind's words, "the only name on the list" for The Shrike. Alexander carries the entire game as William. The strong announcement gave Lyrical enough stature to reach both castings. For a new IP, Rochkind argues, a cast of this caliber signals that the story is taken as seriously as the combat.

Why the Napoleonic Wars?

The setting is One More Level's vision, and one of the elements that sold Rochkind on the project. Fantasy Soulslikes saturate the market; the Napoleonic era made the game stand out immediately. The period also lends itself to horror. A charismatic figure promises a unified Europe, and millions of soldiers die for that idea. Layering plague and body horror on top lets the game ask what a person would sacrifice for power, and for someone else's dream.

The narrative follows William, a young Englishman disillusioned with the monarchy who volunteers for Napoleon's army believing in a unified Europe — and dies for it. He wakes on a battlefield with plague running through his veins, not fully "turned." That corruption is both curse and power: it drives his fighting and grows stronger as he absorbs what he defeats. Napoleon guides him from inside his head until, partway through, another voice joins and pulls William somewhere else entirely.

What did player feedback change?

An early public playtest in August 2025, shortly after the game's announcement, proved transformative for development. The Next Fest demo this summer, a few months before launch, also shaped the final product. Rochkind credits players who stuck with the game for over a year with making it what it is today, and says Lyrical intends to repeat the playtest approach with future releases. Whether that open development loop becomes the label's signature, alongside its midtier-budget publishing model, will become clear as the company's next titles surface.