Lords Of The Fallen Endings Explained (In Detail)

Lords of the Fallen has three possible endings. That’s par for the course in a Soulslike game such as this; they usually have multiple endings and a rotating cast of possible final bosses. Each ending revolves around a certain god or godlike being whom players may choose to side with, and each has different implications for the future of Mournstead. Each one also unlocks a new starting class for Lords of the Fallen that can be used in the next run. The ending a player gets is determined by their decisions throughout the game, and it’s not always perfectly clear how a particular decision affects which ending they get.

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for all possible endings of Lords of the Fallen.]

Lords of the Fallen‘s story revolves around the conflict between two gods: Adyr and Orius. Before the game’s events, the evil god Adyr was banished to the Rhogar Realm by Orius and his followers, who also constructed magic beacons to keep Adyr in place. However, Adyr’s powers of corruption have weakened the beacons and their Hallowed Sentinel protectors. The few surviving followers of Orius send the player character on a mission to cleanse the five sealing beacons, unleashing Adyr and ultimately killing him for good. To help, they grant the player character the Umbral Lamp, which allows them to switch between two separate but interlocking realms.

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Lords Of The Fallen’s Radiant Ending

The Radiant ending of Lords of the Fallen roughly aligns with what other Soulslike games might call the “good” ending. The story comes to an end exactly as expected, with its main goals accomplished. However, certain questions may be left unanswered, and certain options unexplored. It’s also the easiest ending to unlock, and can be seen simply by performing the main tasks outlined in the game’s introduction. The player character must travel to five corrupted beacons around the map, defeating the Colossal Sentinel bosses that guard each one and cleansing the beacons. Purifying a single beacon locks the player into this ending, regardless of what other choices they make.

At the end, they storm Bramis Castle, and wander through its halls until they come face-to-face with Adyr. In the form of a gnarled knot of vines, Adyr attempts to convince them that Orius’ followers have been lying. They can travel to the Rhogar Realm and hear him out, but in the end, they’ll have to kill him. The Umbral Lamp absorbs Adyr’s essence, and Orius takes over just as he was always destined to do. However, the player character dies during the absorption.

Completing Lords of the Fallen with the Radiant ending unlocks the Radiant Purifier starting class on the next playthrough. This is a high-damage battlemage class, focused on light-based spells that use the Radiance stat as a casting modifier.

Lords Of The Fallen’s Inferno Ending

The Inferno ending is Lords of the Fallen‘s “bad” ending, in which the player character turns on Orius’ followers to side with Adyr, and is responsible for death and destruction throughout the world. In order to unlock it, players may defeat as many Colossal bosses as they like, but shouldn’t purify any of the beacons they guard.

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Then, during the Abbey of the Hallowed Sisters sequence, they must obtain the Rune of Adyr from an altar near the Umbral Flowerbed. They’ll have to fight the Rapturous Huntress of the Dark, along with Iron Wayfarer Andreas of Ebb if he’s still alive, in order to take it. Depending on the order in which they’ve completed the rest of the game, Andreas may have already taken the Rune. If that’s the case, they’ll find him later at the gate to Castle Bramis.

The player character takes the rune into the castle, where after the Sundered Monarch boss fight, they may activate the Effigy of Adyr to empower the rune with Adyr’s lifeblood. With the new and improved rune, they must return to each of the still-active beacons, using the rune to break Adyr’s bonds. Finally, they can return to the Empyrean, where they may have fought Judge Cleric earlier in the game. If they haven’t, they’ll have to do so now.

Once defeated, she returns to her true form: the strikingly human Judge Iselle, who was always somewhat sympathetic to Adyr’s cause. The player character enters Judge Iselle’s dream, where they see her tending to an idyllic farm. She beckons to them, and they use the rune to grant Adyr control over her body. Adyr is revived, and comes to rule the world again.

In return for their efforts, Adyr turns the player character into a Rhogar Lord. This unlocks the new Lord starting class, wielding powerful fire spells while slightly tankier than the average magically-inclined class. Lords also have the highest starting level of any class in the game at 23.

Lords Of The Fallen’s Umbral Ending

It’d be a stretch to call this the “true” ending of Lords of the Fallen, as it requires sacrificing several friendly and helpful NPCs. The Umbral ending involves rejecting both of the other gods and turning to an unexpected source of help. It requires a long process to unlock: players must first avoid touching any of the beacons, and then get the Umbral Scouring Clump from Molhu at Skyrest Bridge. This will allow them to enter Mother’s Lull, a strange, dark realm that manifests as a series of platforms. On each one waits a Remnant who has a task for them; completing each task unlocks the next platform.

The first three each give the player character a seed pod with another NPC’s name on it: Damarose, Gerlinde, and then Melchior. They’ll have to use each one to kill each respective NPC, then obtain the Rune of Adyr by one of the means outlined above. The final Remnant in Mother’s Lull will transform this into the Withered Rune of Adyr, which may be used to kill Andreas. Andreas carries Harkyn’s Umbral Parasite, which may be used on the pillar in Molhu’s chamber.

Finally, Molhu explains that the player character must remove the soul of Pieta, one of the Sentinels, in order to reveal her true form. Do that, and defeat the true final boss Elianne the Starved to obtain her Umbral Parasite, which opens the way to Mother’s Lull one last time.

Molhu uses a seed pod to take his own life. This activates the last platform in Mother’s Lull, where the player character confronts the Putrid Mother. This odd creature seems to be composed entirely of deep blue pupil-less eyes and rows of razor-sharp teeth. The Putrid Mother absorbs the player character in her embrace. An epilogue explains that the Putrid Mother wound up shattering the veil between the Axiom and Umbral realms, casting her shadow over what remained of the world. Exactly what that looks like is unclear, but it’s probably not pleasant. This ending unlocks the Putrid Child starting class, which uses both Radiant and Inferno magic.

Those are all the ways in which Lords of the Fallen‘s story can come to a conclusion. None of them could be called a traditionally happy ending, but the doom and gloom implied by them fits well with the game’s generally dreary tone. Since most of them end with the player character’s death, it’s hard to point to one of them as the most preferable choice. Instead, players should just decide for themselves how to approach each situation on their first playthrough of Lords of the Fallen, and see which ending that naturally leads them to.