Lords of the Fallen is heading to PS Plus Essential in April — confirmed by Dealabs leaker billbil-kun, who has a perfect track record on these reveals. All three tiers (Essential, Extra, Premium) get it. Available April 7 through May 5. Normally $39.99 on PS5. Claim it.
The full April lineup gets officially announced on April 1, but the headliner is locked. If you’ve been Soulslike-curious but haven’t pulled the trigger, this is the best possible entry point — not because it’s free, but because this game is genuinely good now in a way it wasn’t at launch.
A Rough Launch That Turned Into a Real Game
Lords of the Fallen launched in October 2023 to mixed reviews. Metacritic landed at 70 on PS5, 75 on PC, 77 on Xbox Series X/S — numbers that undersell what developer Hexworks (a CI Games studio) actually built, but also reflect the honest state of the launch version.
The original release had problems: enemy density was punishing in the wrong ways, combat felt floaty, and performance issues got in the way of the core experience. Those issues are largely gone now. The Update 2.0 overhaul — a massive patch that reworked movement responsiveness, combat animations, enemy placement, and added a new Lamp Guidance system to help players navigate between save points — turned this into a different game. Update 2.5 followed in December 2025 with further refinements. The version coming to PS Plus is not the game that got those 70 scores. It’s considerably better.
IGN scored the original 8/10, writing: “Lords of the Fallen is a great Soulslike, and its killer new idea of swapping between two versions of the world to solve puzzles and slay enemies is an excellent twist to set it apart from the pack.” That “killer new idea” is still the reason to play it.
The Dual Realm System Is the Whole Game
Everything in Lords of the Fallen revolves around the Umbral Lamp — a lantern that lets you shift between Axiom (the physical world) and Umbral (a dark spirit realm layered on top of it). The map exists in both dimensions simultaneously, but the geometry changes between them. A bridge that’s collapsed in Axiom might still be intact in Umbral. Platforms, paths, and shortcuts that don’t exist in one world do in the other.
You don’t just swap between realms — you can hold up the lamp to peek into Umbral from Axiom, letting you see what’s there before you commit to stepping through. This turns exploration into active puzzle-solving rather than corridor jogging. You’re constantly reading two versions of the same space.
The combat integration is where it gets smart. The Soul Flay ability lets you rip an enemy’s soul out of their body, briefly rooting them in place while you deal damage. Some enemies carry supernatural protection that makes them nearly unkillable until you use the lamp to find and destroy nearby hidden eyeballs. A few particularly annoying enemies can be soul-flayed near a cliff and sent falling to their deaths without a fight. It’s a system that rewards experimentation in a way most Soulslikes don’t.
There’s also a death mechanic built around Umbral: if an enemy kills you in Axiom, you don’t immediately get a game over. Instead, you’re pulled involuntarily into Umbral, giving you one last chance to fight your way back. Stay in Umbral too long, though, and a Reaper enemy begins stalking you — get caught by the Reaper and the run actually ends.
How Long, and Is the Story Any Good?
Main story runs 25-30 hours according to HowLongToBeat, with full completion pushing 45-50 hours. There’s NG+ with scaling difficulty, and multiple endings depending on choices made throughout. For a free PS Plus game, that’s serious value.
The story itself is dark fantasy fare — you’re a Dark Crusader trying to prevent the return of a demon god named Adyr. It’s not groundbreaking narrative, but the world-building is strong. The dual-realm design does double duty as both gameplay mechanic and lore: Umbral is what remains after death, and the game doesn’t let you forget that the two worlds are bleeding into each other.
Co-op is supported throughout the entire game, which is rarer than it should be in this genre. Two players can explore and fight together, with full access to the Umbral mechanics for both. If you know someone who also grabs it from PS Plus this month, that’s an easy 30-hour co-op campaign for nothing.
Why April 2026 Specifically Is Good Timing
Lords of the Fallen 2 is coming sometime in 2026. CI Games has confirmed the release year, shared extensive gameplay footage, and teased a new gore system — the sequel promises “every limb can be removed” and looks like a significant step up in scope. No exact date yet, but PC specs have already been revealed, which usually means a release window announcement isn’t far off.
Getting the first game on PS Plus roughly 6-8 months before a sequel drops is a classic move to build the audience. For players who missed Lords of the Fallen entirely, this is exactly the right moment to catch up. You’ll finish the campaign and have context for everything the sequel builds on.
The Honest Caveats
This is still a Soulslike. If you bounced off Dark Souls, Elden Ring, or Lies of P, nothing about Lords of the Fallen is going to change your mind about the genre. The Update 2.0 did make the game more forgiving with difficulty modifiers available, but the core loop — die, lose progress, retrace steps — is intact.
Boss variety is a weak point. IGN called it out in the original review and it’s still true post-updates: the bosses are serviceable but not memorable. You won’t be talking about the boss design the way Elden Ring players talk about Malenia. The environmental design and the Umbral traversal puzzles are the real star, not the combat encounters at the end of each area.
Performance on PS5 is solid now, but the day-one players who had a rough experience aren’t wrong to be skeptical. If you tried it at launch and bounced, the 2.0 version is genuinely different enough to warrant another look. If you’ve never touched it, you’re getting the best version of the game.
Should You Claim It?
Yes. It’s one of the more interesting Soulslikes released in the last three years, it’s had two major updates that fixed the worst launch problems, and it’s arriving on PS Plus at the exact moment most people are going to want to play it — right before the sequel. The dual-realm system alone is worth 10 hours of your time just to see how Hexworks built a game around it.
The full April PS Plus lineup (two additional Essential games alongside Lords of the Fallen) gets announced April 1. Whatever else Sony adds, they already have a strong headliner locked in.
April 7 – May 5, 2026. Available for PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium. All PS5, PS4 compatible.
If you want more free PS Plus picks, here’s Monster Hunter Rise — which is still free until April 7. Grab both before the switchover. And if you’re looking to expand your gaming options for cheap, Game Pass is also worth a look — March had one of the best lineups in a year. For everything currently free across Epic, Prime Gaming, and more, check the full free games roundup.
