GORN 2 review — “More fun than a pillow fight”

One of my personal goals this year is to expand, try out, and sink some time into the VR side of the gaming industry. After the past year of dipping my toe into the pool with a couple of demos and previews, I’m ready to dive into the sequel to a game that I never originally played, GORN 2. Knowing little to nothing about what to expect, what I’ve found is a light-hearted gladiator fighting simulator that offers some hilarious and ragdoll fun. 

Let’s go ahead and answer the question everyone (including myself) asks, “Do I need to play the first game to know what’s going on?” Well, after completing the 3-4 hour story and putting some time into the post-story content, the answer is an easy no, as the narrative of GORN 2 is heavily simplistic, which is all it wants and needs to be. The basis of the story revolves around working up to and challenging the five sons of the God of the Afterlife. Each son has their uniquely themed arena where you’ll have to fight and survive rounds of increasingly bigger and badder opponents, leading to taking on the champion of that arena. While the plot alone is nothing new or noteworthy, the humor-infused dialogue is great fun and helped elevate the experience and keep me entertained. 

Moving into what makes GORN 2 work, the gameplay takes center stage, and rightfully so. It’s easy to see how much effort the Free Lives development team spent on ensuring everything worked smoothly, as gameplay is overwhelmingly the reason to play the game. The best comparison I can draw to describe how it feels playing is akin to a pillow fight, or as a reference for all the ’90s kids like myself, Sock’em Boppers. Players will also have a couple of modes to choose from, as the “Endless” and “Custom” games unlock upon completing the story. Endless and Custom are self-explanatory, and were where I solely spent my time after finishing up the story, and I’d bet many others will do the same. 

Being a game about fighting gladiators in an arena, there has to be a lot of weapons to choose from, right? One of the cooler aspects of GORN 2 is the weapon variety and how it pairs with the freedom to fight how you want. The usual weapons you’d expect are available, like the sword, axe, and spear, but some surprises were thrown in as well. One of my favorites I came across was a sword that started as small as a kitchen knife, and the blade grew in size for every opponent you took out. There are a lot more surprises, but we don’t want to spoil all the fun.

Visually, the game looks good and runs great. Performance-wise, I didn’t encounter any bugs, glitches, or other nonsense. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the VR controls performed with me using different strategies to test the weapons. I’ve played a lot of first-person shooters, and I’m always looking into how well hit registration performs, and it’s great in GORN 2. Even as I was sporadically using a warhammer to bonk a gladiator’s helmet, I didn’t experience any lag or delay, which I was fully expecting with how sporadic you can flail your weapons.

GORN 2 isn’t without its faults, and I want to touch on those. Starting at the top of the list is the lack of multiplayer, a missing piece that I’m surprised isn’t included because it would’ve been incredibly fun to play against friends. Additionally, the traps and power-ups available to use end up feeling underwhelming or even a bit safe. Traps are simply used as something to just push enemies into for quick kills, and the power-ups could’ve been more creative and silly. With such a pillar of GORN being its amazing humor, they missed out by not using that to their advantage. 

Overall, GORN 2’s success comes from Free Lives’ understanding and execution of their goal in making an outrageous VR gladiator simulator sequel. I went in with little to no expectations as I had very little knowledge of the game beforehand, and now they’ve made me a fan of all things GORN. Offering new weapons, a new story, and expanding off the foundation of the first game, the team has done a lotta things right and I’m excited and hoping for a third installment.

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