Note: Shoulders of Doom not included.
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem is an isometric action-RPG made by French Wolcen Studio (formerly known as Solarfall Games). The Player Character is a member of the Purifiers, a Church Militant led by Grand Inquisitor Heimlock. During an operation against the rebellious Brotherhood of Dawn, you are suddenly attacked by a mysterious Demon who awakens a dark power within you. Accused of witchcraft by your former brothers and sisters of the Republic, you are forced to go on the run, and things only escalate as a dark plot begins to reveal itself.Now has a character page.
The game features examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Some later quests provide an assortment of cosmetic overrides for your character. Reusable dyes are also an uncommon drop from enemies.
- Anti-Magical Faction: The Republic of Man sees any and all forms of magic, even the holy-seeming kind used by the player character, as "witchcraft" that must be brutally purged.
- Big Bad: Ahriman the Sleeper orchestrated the entire plot in order to force Heimlock, who he had enslaved, to release him from his prison.
- Body Horror: The servants of Ashtaroth are deformed, tumor-covered monstrosities.
- The Chosen One: A dark example. The protagonist, Edric and Valeria were all handpicked by Ahriman to serve as vessels for his power.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Attacks and spells, both from yourself and your enemies, have specific colours to indicate their element.
- Physical: A neutral colour or pale white.
- Toxic: Green.
- Rend: Red.
- Fire: Orange.
- Frost: Pale blue.
- Lightning: Blue.
- Aether: Light Purple.
- Sacred: Light Yellow.
- Shadow: Dark Purple.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: When creating your character, you choose your starting weapon between a sword, a bow or a staff. However, this only determines what you start off with and you're free to build your character however you wish.
- Evil Is Visceral: Lambach's lair is full of corpse piles, unidentified guts and barely stops short of being a full-on Womb Level.
- Extra Eyes: Lambach. Six eyes set in what looks like a Skull for a Head.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Your first fight against Ahriman will always end in failure. You will get further attempts to challenge them later, but depending on how well you can prepare, your next few rematches may be excercises in Controllable Helplessness.
- I Am Legion: Lambach refers to themselves in plural, often the form of "the we". Fittingly, they have a Voice of the Legion that has both male and female elements to it.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Happens multiple times throughout the story with Heimlock, and later with Valeria.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: In the epilogue after the boss of Act 4, Heimlock attempts to make amends with Valeria, begging to not be shut out of her life. Valeria simply states that she never wants to cross paths with him again, and the Purifier is quick to shut down any further protests from him.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The game is unfortunately noted to have a plethora of minor bugs, but its first iterations had rather significant ones. In particular was a significant glitch on the Act 3 boss, where dealing too much damage to them at certain points in the fight would render them unkillable. This was patched quickly,
but this permanently tainted the game's reputation. - "Groundhog Day" Loop: A benevolent, beneficial version. You awake from your Demonic Possession to find Stormfall mostly destroyed, and have to fight Ahriman. After your inevitable death against him, you awaken once more a medical cart with perfect recollection of your fate. This gives you the knowledge to start preparing for the invasion in a limited version of the Champion of Stormfall mode, with a limited amount of time to do so. If you die again, this process repeats, but any levels gained are retained, and any buildings apart from the Regent Assembly that you built remain that way. In the main story mode, the loop ends when you win, but in the Champion of Stormfall mode, it remains in place regardless of if you win or lose. However, given that the story reaches a conclusion, it can be assumed that the Purifier will be able to leave the loop whenever they choose.
- Large and in Charge: Even outside of armor, Heimlock is a massive wall of muscle despite his age.
- Lizard Folk: The Svriir. They're predictably abhorrent.
- Mage Marksman: A potential build is a gunslinging magic-user who can use both ranged skills and spells by wielding a gun and a catalyst.
- Magitek: The Primordials that created the world, made it inherently magical. Even the technology of the supernatural-fearing Republic is powered by supernatural energies.
- The Magic Versus Technology War: The United Republic of Mankind use advanced technology powered by energy crystals and they despise the supernatural, seeking to destroy its presence. In their minds, magic is associated with witchcraft and they see it as inherently corrupting.
- Magnetic Weapons: Republic soldiers are armed with railguns and the player character themselves can use the Deathgazer Railgun via a skill.
- Meat Moss: Places under the influence of Ashtaroth or at the fringes of the Lambach's domain are often covered in flesh. Delving deeper into these locations often leads to the discovery of organic hellscapes.
- Multi-Stage Battle: Edric goes through three platforms, with a different fighting style on each one.
- One-Winged Angel: Subverted with Lambach. The one you were talking to turns out to be an anglerfish-style extension of the boss' real body, and the second stage of the Sequential Boss makes you face a massive, six-armed monstrosity with Combat Tentacles in a very confined space.The Purifier: Either it's dead... or really pissed off.
- Post-End Game Content: Once you have completed the game, you gain access to the Champion of Stormfall mode, which places you in charge of improving Stormfall between missions, in order to upgrade yourself further.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: The player character can be either a man or a woman but other than how you look it doesn't really matter.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Bestowed upon the main character by a baby dragon, in order to defeat Ahriman by means of a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- Skill Scores and Perks: You use a skill tree to build your character. The two outer rings of the tree can be rotated so that you can potentially create a mixed hybrid build.
- Stationary Boss: Lambach.
- Shoulders of Doom: Heimlock wears ridiculously huge pauldrons, worthy of a Space Marine Primarch. Other Purifiers aren't modest about those either, and you can gain some rather impressive ones as well.
- Super Mode: Upon completing Act I you get to choose one of four Apocalyptic Forms that you can transform into. Progressing through the story lets you unlock the other forms.
- Unexplained Recovery: Prior to the Act 4 update, the main quest ends with the protagonist sacrificing themselves to save Heimlock and Valeria from being possessed by Ahriman by taking in all his essence themselves. There's a brief image of Ahriman gloating about his victory, the credits roll...then Champion of Stonefall mode starts, and the protagonist is perfectly fine. However, now that the fourth and final chapter has released, the recovery is far more explained.
- The Unfought: Inquisitor Maelys is built up to be a major antagonist, but is ultimately taken out by Valeria offscreen.
