Lords of the Fallen II is the next installment of the dark fantasy action-RPG franchise "where brutal, soulslike combat meets a world splitting at its core". Abstraction as a co-developer partner had the pleasure to be fully responsible for the implementation of a number of enemies under the design direction of CI Games. I joined the project from October 2024 to October 2025.

With the game's technical foundation being based on Unreal's Gameplay Ability System, I took over the role of an AI and Animation programmer to realize a number of enemy combat systems and attacks in very close collaboration with designers and animators.

AI combat behaviour is mostly implemented by mixing behaviour trees, animation montages and gameplay abilities. Owned key features of mine were:

• An enhanced Look-At system with "Swing'n'Twist" interpolations to improve vertical rotations. This required a custom Control Rig to allow for correct head tracking for enemies who are taller than the player character.
• Dynamic parry windows for animations with root-motion that "rush" towards the player. These enable configuration of distance and time-based parries instead of relying on fixed parry frames that are defined within the attack animation.

...and many more features I would be happy to talk about in more detail once this game releases in eraly 2027 and in direct conversations with you!

Developer: CI Games
Publisher: CI Games