What is the Umbral Rift in Lords of the Fallen

Lords of the Fallen is home to many unique features within the game, with one of them being the Umbral Rift - a pretty significant mechanic that helps you to discover paths that aren’t usually seen in the Axiom and can only be seen by travelling into the Umbral.

One of the newest Soulslikes games, Lords of the Fallen has a lot of similar features to others in the genre like Elden Ring and Lies of P, especially when it comes to the parrying and blocking mechanic. However, the Umbral Rift is a very unique feature that plays a big part in the overall gameplay.

So, if you're just diving in and aren't sure of what the Umbral is, here's all you need to know about this mysterious realm in Lords of the Fallen. 

What is Umbral & Umbral Rift in Lords of the Fallen?

In simple terms, Umbral is the realm of the dead, whereas Axiom is the realm of the living. To access the Umbral realm, you have to use your lantern, known as Umbral Rift, which has the potential to uncover paths that are only accessible in the realm - and they can then be traversed through by using this ability (by pressing LT/L2 on a controller). 

However, traversing in the Umbral Realm can be dangerous, as it causes you to take Wither damage over time. You can heal this back by hitting and killing enemies, but you also risk losing your health if you get struck.

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Equally, if you die, you have the chance to respawn in Umbral, which is a second chance at 'life'. However, if you die in Umbral, you will die completely and have to respawn at an area and retrace the steps you took before.

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Soul Flaying explained

The lantern plays an important part when you are in Umbral, as it allows you to rip out the souls of enemies using Soulflay. This allows you to ignore their physical body and deal damage to their soul directly, instead. 

Soul Flaying can be incredibly useful in Lords of the Fallen, as it allows you to move the enemy’s soul wherever you want. This means that you can pull the soul off of a cliff should you want to, and the body will follow. This can lead to some pretty fun deaths of your opponents. However, you only have a limited amount of charges before you have to recharge your Soul Flay with Soul Siphon. You can siphon souls from enemies and blisters that you come across. Doing this in Axiom is very useful, as not only does it recharge your Soul Flay, but it allows you to regain some vigor in doing so. 

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How to leave the Umbral Realm

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If you want to leave the Umbral Realm, it isn’t as simple as you may have hoped, as you'll be stuck in the realm until you come across a Vestige that you can rest at. Here, you'll need to plant a Vestige Seed into the flower bed and you are then able to return to the land of the living. 

You don’t want to use Vestige Seeds often, though, as they are a rare resource to come across, and you want to make sure that you are using them on the correct Vestiges. 

Equally, you can use effigies which are smaller versions of a Vestige, but they won’t let you rest, level up or warp. You want to try and spend as little time as possible in Umbral, as if you stay in the realm too long, your character starts to experience Umbral Dread, which can unleash enemies that materialise from thin air and attack you. The longer you stay in the realm, the more dread you accumulate, which in turn causes the enemies that attack you to be stronger. 

That’s everything you need to know about the Umbral realm in Lords of the Fallen. 

For more guides, check out our Lords of the Fallen homepage. Alternatively, here are all of the different editions available for Lords of the Fallen.