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Addicting Gladiator Spectacle! | We Who Are About to Die | Full In-Depth Review

4K View2022-11-16

🟩Pros

+unique and satisfying combat

+deep and addicting progression system

+character customization

+engaging career management elements

🟥Cons

-no controller support yet

-unsatisfactory performance

-clunky at times, both combat and the camera

-no ranged combat nor animals to fight

With how popular rogue-lite games are becoming lately, as well as the consistent popularity of the Ancient Rome setting throughout the years, I’m a bit surprised that we don’t have enough Gladiator style focused games already. Saturating the market like the zombie or world war tropes we have today. That soon is about to change, as we now have We Who Are About to Die, recently released on Early Access.

Ever encountered a pretty cool arena combat or gladiator mechanic in a game? and said like “Man, I wish there was a full game focused on this”? —- Well, your wish is now granted. We Who Are About to Die’s main focus is all around the life of Gladiators. This is unlike most titles where the game just shallowly dips into the concept of gladiators by way of side content arena combat, mini-games, or side questlines.

A Unique Physics-based Combat System

We Who Are About to Die is reminiscent of melee / sword fighting games like Mount and Blade and Kingdom Come: Deliverance when it comes to combat and its approach to your freedom of directional swings. But with a twist: You now completely control the physics and the actual movement and momentum of your attacks. You control it using mouse movements, “swinging” or sliding it across your mousepad like some sort of motion control. This reminds me of two games that had the closest mechanic: The relatively obscure 90s PC game “Die by the Sword” and the recent indie isometric RPG “Examina”.

This physics-based unique combat system is the make or break feature of We Who Are About to Die. One that will leave you not only fighting against the enemy, but also fighting against the controls and the camera. It can be annoying, yes. It adds an extra to the challenge and it’s a bit unforgiving, especially when combined with the rogue-lite nature. Ultimately it is a rewarding experience once you figure out the controls and come up with your very own movesets and “hand made” animations to brawl your way into flying limbs, bashed heads, and glorious victories.

Despite the heavy focus in the physics, We Who Are About to Die is far from being realistic nor it tries to be. The physics based combat system is just that, without any implications of trying to be a proper sword fighting simulator. As a result of being directly controlled, animations aren’t as smooth as the usual hack and slash game and will look clunky most of the time. The clunkiness nature is fine for the most part, as I found it part of the game’s charm.

What's missing:

It’s important to note though that We Who Are About to Die doesn’t have any of the traditional ranged medieval combat, like bows, crossbows, or slings to use. You can however throw melee weapons and use them as projectiles. Basically any weapon in the game can be thrown. As with the game’s unique physics combat, It adds another challenge on its own as to how you will land those shots. There are also no animals or beasts to fight as it is purely a human vs human combat game, which is unfortunate as animals are part of Gladiator contests as well.

Career mode

Aside from the fighting, We Who Are About to Die is also a part management game. As in you are managing your character’s career: Customize your fighter, grow and upgrade his skills, customize his training regime, manage his reputation, etc. This system brings back memories of various career modes of sports games like Fight Night or WWE that I’ve played throughout my childhood.

Aside from the fun combat, the career mode aspect of We Who Are About to Die is just as fun, and even more addicting. The dynamics of carefully selecting and preparing for your next matches from what’s available are engaging, gauging if such a match is winnable and has great benefits. As well as choosing what “Patron” — the sponsors of the arena — to impress. Different patrons have different focuses. For example one Patron might focus on Gold benefits, while another for skills and training. Things also take time in this game. The repairs, training, healings, etc can take one or more battles to complete. It is even a good choice to keep two sets of weapons or armor so you can send one batch for repairs.

Progression system

As for the rogue-lite nature, the game itself focuses on your journey as a Gladiator. From an unknown slave to a potential Grand Champion known across all of Terantia — the game’s setting. You start with your character by randomizing from a selection of backstories with different starting traits and skills. Customize the character in-between matches via different armor slots and melee weapons to select and bring into the arena. Your wins earn you money to buy equipment and services, along with influence to perform authoritative actions like rerolling or revealing the available items in the store, giving it some action RPG and looter elements.

There are also random events and decision making in We Who Are About to Die that adds so much flavor to an otherwise non-existent plot. Even something as simple as choosing a dialogue option out of a random event, or choosing your reward adds greatly to the game’s personality. You can also do an assorted list of minor actions like betting in matches, fundraising, or bribery. To potentially multiply your or easily deplete your credits and influences.

Matches in We Who Are About to Die come in different types of gamemodes, such examples are the usual 1 vs 1, Many vs Many, Free for all, among others. All of which is mixed with a variety of modifiers like item bonuses, stat penalties, or additional allies. Add to that the different possible maps or “arenas” it can take place in and it gives you a plethora of possible match configurations. As your reputation grows, so do the arenas you fight into. From the pits, slums, to the arena and into the Stadium, as long as you don’t die trying.

You only need to die once and the playthrough ends, making every second of action thrilling and adrenaline filled because of that extra attachment to your character. The gladiators having a somewhat realistic endurance and damage model means you can die too easily and quickly with a simple mistake or stamina overuse. After you die, gold that is invested beforehand is retained to your next generated gladiator with a newly generated backstory and stats. You can also reroll the generated gladiator to another backstory, at the expense of foregoing the gold investment from your previous character.

All these aforementioned gameplay elements creates an addicting loop that will make you press the “To Battle” button again, and again, until you realize you spent the whole night playing. If Civilization has a “just more turn” syndrome, We Who Are About to Die is all about “just one more battle”.

Graphics and Artstyle

Unreal Engine’s impressive lighting system carries the weight of the game graphically, with amazing lighting and shadow effects greatly enhancing the somewhat average looking meshes and textures. The Artstyle on the other hand is a bit caricaturish or cartoonish with the characters, which blends in nicely with the clunkiness nature of the physics combat system.

Early Access

We Who Are About to Die is still in early access with an expectation of 8 to 12 months to finish as per the developer. As always, take this with a grain of salt, as delays are pretty commonplace in the Early Access section. Fortunately, there are clear roadmaps that are laid out for the game. More game modes, equipment, events, maps, are all planned to be added during the early access period. One feature that I’m most excited about is the controller support, with the specific mention of supporting the Steam Deck as well, because right now, you can only play with a mouse and keyboard.

Despite being in early access, We Who Are About to Die is very much playable and feels like a full game with fully fleshed out features and enough content.

Technical Performance

The game would definitely benefit from additional performance optimization, as We Who Are About to Die did not run exceptionally well as of its current state. This is disappointing considering the graphics aren’t really eye candy to begin with.

As mentioned earlier, the free flow physics combat can get clunky sometimes. There are times that I’ve noticed my character’s arms will get stuck and wrap around its body in all sorts of glitchy ways.

As for the AI, Taking into account that this is a physics based melee combat game without actual animations, the AI is actually decent. It provides an enjoyable challenge throughout all my playthroughs. Not annoying, nor unforgiving, nor I ever felt that I was being cheated in the matches. Although it shines the most in 1 v 1 battles, either as a single match or a part of bigger battles where gladiators would basically lock on together in a 1v1 battle. For free for all or gang up scenarios, The AI can have a hard time tracking multiple enemies at once and can have difficulties fighting multiple enemies at the same time.

Conclusion:

At an introductory Early Access price of $19.79 (10% off), We Who Are About to Die is a fun and unique gladiator game worthy of a try for fans of similar titles like Exanima, Chivalry, or Mount and Blade. Even at an early access stage, it is already addicting, fun, and playable. For those who are just mildly interested, you can support the game early. Or you can follow it and just wait out for more features such as controller support before buying.

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