It always amazes me just how many MMOs existed, continue to exist, and come back from a sunset. I’m always shocked when I look at the backlog of games I’ve played in the past and then realize there are still so many well-known games that I somehow never touched. It’s staggering honestly. Among them is Gloria Victis, which for one reason or another just never crossed my path. It must have something to do with the combat style of the game not connecting with me.
But like so many others we’ve seen recently, the game has risen from the dead – this time with the help of none of than Gamigo. Gamigo’s recently been on a trajectory of restoring almost-lost games, improving my opinion of it tenfold. I must have a morbid curiosity when it comes to games that’ve found themselves a means of relaunching after a sunset (like all the Paragon spinoffs).
So as someone who completely overlooked Gloria Victis in its first pass, I wanted to jump in there and find out everything I could about the game now that it’s back: how it plays, whether or not it feels alive with other players, and whether I could see myself staying.
Let’s recap the history of Gloria Victis. I knew that it shuttered some time ago, but I couldn’t recall when, why, or who was to blame, so I did some reading. Under the banner of Black Eyed Games, a small indie team from Poland initially began development of the MMO way back in February of 2012. After only a handful of years in pre-alpha, the game arrived on Steam Early Access in 2016 selling 30,000 copies in just 30 days with an alpha version.
This certainly explains a bit of how it was passing me by. You’ll recall that Guild Wars 2 launched in August of 2012, and by 2016 it was still rocking through its first expansion in the Heart of Thorns. Back then, I was fully immersed in everything GW2. I was enthralled with the new elite specs and all the gory PvP content I could sink my teeth into.
After launching on Steam, Gloria Victis continued to receive steady updates over the next decade. According to Black Eyed Games, it “managed to run the servers […] continuously for almost 11 years, and since the Steam release in 2016 [the team] updated the game more than 370 times (plus 150 times before Steam).”
That’s an achievement to be sure! Think of how many games have shuttered after only months! A look through SteamCharts shows that even though the player count was far from its peak, the studio did manage to maintain an average of around 350 players continuously. Regardless, the declining playerbase ultimately led to the developers having to make the tough decision to sunset the game on Halloween 2023.
But fortunately, Black Eyed Games was able to secure a deal to have the game revived and published by Gamigo this year in February of 2026. Shortly after that, this past June, the game relaunched as a free-to-play title to both returning players and new ones.
I mentioned how I was never really drawn to the combat of Gloria Victis; I came primarily from the world of JRPGs and turn-based combat, and even though most of our MMOs now are basically action-oriented combat, using my hotbar to pop off skills still makes me feel at home.
Here, though, the hotbar mostly launches items to facilitate your combat; you place the different items and equipment you want to have on hand and quickly swap them in and out. Combat is action-oriented without any tab targeting. Yes, it is one of those: Combat was meant to feel driven more by player-skills than hotbar skills. If you’d like to shoot enemies in the face, you’d best whip out that bow, aim at their ugly mugs, and let loose your bolts. If they move aside, then your shot will miss. There’s no magical magnet that will yoink the arrow towards the enemy.
Also worth noting is that the world of Gloria Victis is a realistic, gritty, medieval European environment, so shooting enemies in the face is definitely likely. Also being shot in your own face.
Melee combat is similarly player-controlled. Gloria Victis eschews the act of using hotbar skills and instead plays the route of mouse movement and clicks being the primary means of fighting proper. You’ll click to swipe with a weapon and hold the right-click to block, but the attacks will actually come out from the left or right depending on which way you angle your mouse.
It’s a tricky mechanic that I realize a lot of players love (since so many games do it), but I just can’t quite find a love for it myself. It always seems a bit finicky, but that’s probably because I’m not familiar enough with it. Defending works this way as well, where you can see the direction the opponent’s strike is coming from and attempt to block that direction.
For me, it’s very reminiscent of the combat in Mortal Online (and the follow-up Mortal Online 2) or even the Chivalry games. The largest point of distinction is that Gloria Victis plays mostly from a third-person perspective, while the former games were first person.
However, we’re not completely without leveling or class based skills. The game is still class-based, so as you level, you’ll be able to unlock functional skills. I’ve not played enough to have a whole host of them, but early on there is a shield bash that combines the block and kick buttons to add a stun to my attacks. There’s also a distinct lack of magic in the game. Allegedly there was no such thing as magic back in our “realistic” medieval days. Allegedly. You weren’t there back then either! You don’t know!
Thus far, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the combat in Gloria Victis and that’s because I always tend to focus my attention on a game’s combat. This is MassivelyOP’s Fight or Kite PvP column, after all. But there is actually a whole ton of other systems available. Combat is very much only one feature you could focus your time on. There’s all the crafting and building systems you’d expect from a full-fledged proper MMO too. I even see a bunch of different holiday-themed decorations in the cash shop, so I suppose you can even build your own house as well.
I’m going to leave you with this – a teaser, if you will. I was so unfamiliar with the game that I’ve gone and run out of time just catching all of us up on the ins and outs. I barely even had a moment to tell you how I felt about the game! Unjust, I know. But you’ve stayed with me this long, probably, so you’ll be with me in a couple weeks when I can tell you whether or not I actually enjoy the Gloria Victis.
