Lords Of The Fallen Creative Director Has Departed From Hexworks As Sequel Looms

Cezar Virtosu, the creative director of the Lords of the Fallen, has announced that he no longer holds the position and has departed from Hexworks altogether.

The announcement came by way of a LinkedIn post from Virtosu himself, where he joked about being able to sleep in on weekdays. However, the nature of this post leads us to believe that the decision to move on from Lords of the Fallen may not have been Virtosu’s at all. “Well… it finally happened. After 20 years of pixel pushing, performance capture, PowerPoint sketching, and relentless image hunting, I find myself out of a job.”

I find myself out of a job. That doesn’t sound like the kind of verbiage someone who has decided to leave on their own accord would use, but it’s hardly concrete proof of anything. His post continues with, “Saying goodbye to Lords of the Fallen has been the hardest part. After five years steeped in dark fantasy, it became more than just a project, it was an extension of myself. But like Mournstead, no kingdom lasts forever.”

While we could be reading too much into a bittersweet goodbye, the comments left on Virtosu’s post all point to a reality where the former creative director was made redundant.

Thanks to the CI Games Results, Strategy Update & Product Roadmap 2025-2028 report, we know that a sequel for Lords of the Fallen isn’t just in the pipeline, but it’s fast approaching a reveal. According to the aforementioned report, Hexworks has been developing the “next major instalment in the LOTF franchise, built on UE5.” Not only is this project noted as being in “full production” within the report, but its target release is currently 2026.

Virtosu joined Hexworks and took on the role of creative director for Lords of the Fallen in 2020, with the game seeing its release three years later in 2023. Before his departure earlier this month, it seems safe to assume that Virtosu took on the same creative position for Lords of the Fallen’s sequel and likely made many important decisions that would lead the course development. If the targeted 2026 release date remains unchanged, that is.

Without confirmation or word from CI Games of Hexworks, this is all speculation and guesswork, but if Virtosu was shown the door, what would it mean for the future direction for Lords of the Fallen? In late 2023, we spoke with Hexworks Studio Head and Lords of the Fallen Executive Producer Saul Gascon during an episode of Talkthrough, in which he spoke positively about the long future for LOTF as a franchise and the potential for the IP to grow. This sentiment is bolstered by the substantial financial return the game has seen (as evident in the above report) and the increasingly positive response that the most recent Soulslike title has garnered.

We gave Lords of the Fallen an 8 in our review, stating that the game “makes up for its clumsy combat and opaque systems with the fantastic Umbral lamp and its impressive audiovisual design.” Since its launch, the game has received a range of updates and additional content, with the most recent 2.0 update enhancing the co-op experience, introducing a jump button, and sharing progress.

All of this is to say that Lords of the Fallen, as a franchise, seems to be finding its feet, making it all the more puzzling as to why its creative director may have just been laid off.

We have reached out to CI GGames for a comment and will update this article pending their response.