Valor Mortis Sets a $40 Price Tag as One More Level Bets on Value Against GTA 6

By CriticalPixel · 2026-09-17

One More Level just told its own publisher's pricing meeting precisely what it thinks about the fall release calendar. Valor Mortis, the studio's first person soulslike set in a Napoleonic hellscape, launches October 13 at $39.99 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, and the team is framing that number as a deliberate stand against a season packed with heavyweight competition. Publisher Lyrical Games confirmed the price alongside a Deluxe Edition at $59.99 that adds a Major Story DLC telling a new chapter set in the same world.

Why $40 for a 20 Hour Campaign

According to IGN, Lyrical Games said the studio spent the past year debating what to charge for a game it believes could go toe to toe with full price releases on quality and scope alone. The campaign runs roughly 20 hours, which by most soulslike standards would justify a $60 or $70 sticker. Instead the publisher chose to undercut the market, betting that a lower barrier to entry will pull players away from bigger budget rivals fighting for the same shelf space this fall. It is a rare admission from a publisher that price, not just quality, decides whether a mid sized game gets noticed in a crowded release window.

Valor Mortis first person combat against an armored enemy in a Napoleonic battlefield

Valor Mortis already dodged one bullet this year. The game was originally slated for September 24 before One More Level pushed it back to October 13 specifically to avoid launching into the same week as Remedy's Control Resonant and Konami's Silent Hill: Townfall. That reshuffle bought some breathing room, but it also walked the game straight into a longer shadow. GTA 6 lands roughly a month after Valor Mortis, and every publisher shipping anything this fall knows precisely what that means for marketing budgets, review cycles, and player attention spans. Lyrical Games said as much in its own statement, calling this stretch of the calendar one of the most stacked in the business.

What You Actually Get

One More Level is the studio behind the Ghostrunner series, and it is carrying over that team's obsession with fast, punishing combat into a genre shift from cyberpunk parkour to grounded first person swordplay. On its own account, the developer detailed one of the trickier problems that came with putting a soulslike camera in first person: reading attacks from oversized bosses when the player cannot see their own character for scale. The studio's solution is dynamic field of view scaling, where the camera stretches outward in front of massive enemies specifically to make incoming attacks and parry windows easier to read without breaking the first person perspective.

Valor Mortis boss encounter with a towering enemy on a war torn battlefield

There are no pre-orders for Valor Mortis, a choice the team framed simply as wanting the finished game to speak for itself rather than banking on hype before release. That is a notable departure from how most publishers handle a fall launch competing for wishlist visibility, and it lines up with the broader pricing pitch: sell confidence in the product, not a promise. The Deluxe Edition's Major Story DLC gives buyers who want more a reason to pay the extra $20 without gating any of the base 20 hour campaign behind it.

How the Community Is Reacting

Reaction under IGN's announcement leaned positive but pointed. One reply called the pricing honest given what the studio called a meat grinder of a fall schedule, while another asked the sharper question of whether the tight release window forced the team to trim content rather than simply pass savings along. Elsewhere on X, fans who played hands on demos at recent showcases were more bullish, with one calling the combat systems a genre changer after dropping out of preview builds early to avoid spoilers. A Polish gaming outlet corroborated the exact regional pricing directly from One More Level's own press release, putting the standard edition at 149.99 PLN and the Deluxe Edition at 199 PLN alongside the USD and EUR figures.

Valor Mortis environment shot showing a gothic Napoleonic era hellscape

The reaction sample here is still limited to what surfaced in the hours right after the announcement, so treat it as an early read rather than a verdict. What is clear is that One More Level is trying something publishers rarely commit to out loud: pricing a game below its perceived value on purpose, then explaining precisely why in public. Whether that gamble pays off depends less on the studio's confidence and more on whether players actually notice a $40 soulslike sitting next to a $70 open world crime epic a month later.

CriticalPixel Take

Undercutting your own game's perceived value to survive a release calendar you did not choose is a gutsy move, and it says more about the state of the industry than it does about Valor Mortis specifically. Publishers have spent years chasing $70 price points on the logic that scope justifies cost. Lyrical Games just admitted the opposite can be true when the competition is Rockstar sized. If the combat holds up to the Ghostrunner pedigree behind it, $39.99 with no pre-order pressure is precisely the kind of low risk pitch that could turn a crowded October into a sleeper hit instead of a footnote.