When the player is killed, they will be transported to Umbral in which they must return to Axiom and retrieve lost experience points.

One of Orious' finest warriors, Judge Cleric, established the order of the Hallowed Sentinels to watch over five magic beacons in the land of Mournstead to prevent Adyr from reviving.

Over a thousand years after Adyr's defeat, his return looms nearer as the beacons become tainted by his influence, and the Rhogar begin to infest the land.

A sect of the Sentinels, the Dark Crusaders, acquires a powerful artifact to prevent this: the Umbral Lamp, which has the power to resurrect its user, allow them to travel between the realms of the living (Axiom) and the dead (Umbral), pull the souls out of enemies, and activate Stigmas, fragments of past events.

Exacter Dunmire, head of the Crusaders, recruits them to travel across Mournstead and cleanse the beacons with the Lamp, using it to absorb Adyr's essence at each one.

The wide world is fraught with dangerous animals, monsters, demons, cults, and even the corrupted forces of the Sentinels.

The beacon in the Empyrean, the Sentinel's headquarters, is guarded by none other than Judge Cleric herself; partway through the battle, she is revealed to be entirely corrupted, just like the rest of the order.

[13] Hexworks had high ambitions for the game, with Virtosu adding that the studio set out to be "the second reference [after FromSoftware]" for the Soulsborne genre by making "Dark Souls 4.5".

As far as performance is concerned, the reviewer wrote that "even on a robust desktop" he was forced to "turn down the graphics fairly significantly".

[30] PC Gamer's reviewer also likes the idea of the lamp used to cross between two worlds, even though he feels that "Hexworks could've done more with the concept".

He also writes that using the lamp didn't give performance problems, and the game generally ran smoothly.