Gloria Victis Game Review

Gloria Victis is a 3D Medieval themed MMORPG set between three warring factions. The game is completely crowdfunded, but is in no means inferior to company-backed MMORPGs.

Featuring action combat, a grounded, medieval (as opposed to fantasy) experience void of magic (think Lord of the Rings), you’d be silly to avoid trying this out.

Let me start this off by saying I’m a huge fan of medieval-themed RPGs, especially ones that include fantasy elements like The Witcher, Skyrim or Gothic.
So, naturally, finding an MMORPG set within the same realm as the aforementioned games was thrilling for me. Gloria Victis is still in early access, but it has been since June 2016.
What that ultimately means for the game is uncertain, but nevertheless, it was only $20. It couldn’t be so bad that it wouldn’t warrant a mere $20 investment, right? Right.. I think.

So, given that this is a Western MMORPG and it’s not like they have a long history of providing extensive character customizability, Gloria Victis does well by providing a fairly sizeable variety of hairstyles, facial hairs, and sliders to craft your character.
Granted, you don’t have the kind of control over your avatar as you do in Black Desert, or even Perfect World for that matter, but it’s respectable nonetheless.

You have the option to choose between three different factions before finishing your character – Midland, the faction from the North, the Empire of Azebia or Sangmar Empire – both of which are under the same faction, and Nordheim.
Each faction has their own unique classes – or, archetype, rather, as you aren’t locked into anything as simple as a class.
Think of the class system in an Elder Scrolls game. You can have a heavy armor archer, or a light armor greatsword wielding hulking mass of death.
You’re given general freedom to play how you want.. and although interesting in theory, I believe that classes are part of what make an MMORPG interesting.
You’re given a role – you either excel at that role, being an important part of your group, or you don’t, and you re-roll a DPS like the rest of us.
Regardless, learning your role and learning your class is part of learning the game.
I understand that Gloria Victis still has skills, has different weapon types, and some people are into having the freedom to build your character how you want.
I’m not hating on, nor am I saying this system is inferior, I’m merely stating that it removes an element of the genre I’ve grown accustomed to.
Now, to finish off your character you’re given a quiz to help determine your playstyle. I answered everything as best I could and was told to, essentially, roll a high HP tank. Pass. Full Strength glass cannon for life, baby!

The game utilizes a stamina system, one that.. well, let’s say that swimming without any stamina is unequivocally ill advised.

A fun thing I found about the game was that I could go around and attack poor citizens without repercussion.

A throwback to older RPGs and MMOs in general were the NPCs that had no quest icons to denote importance. I ran past my quest NPC on several occasions because I was looking for that almighty golden exclamation point.
Little did I know, Gloria Victis makes things a little harder by not telling you shit. Okay, maybe a lot harder. I was coddled and cosseted, okay? Stop glaring at me with those judgemental eyes.
One thing of note in particular regarding quests was the quest text itself.. it seems very poorly translated. As if someone with English as their 3rd language wrote this out.. or ran it through Google translate, at least.

“Listen to be. It’s a good advise.”

Hahahaha.

So one thing I learned about gathering was that the speed at which you gather selected items is dependent on what you have equipped.
For example, I swapped my sword to an axe to cut up wood and it made it exponentially faster. I’m guessing the same applies to other things like herbs and ore.

Now, the skill system. From what I could tell, you don’t actually learn skills. You learn passive abilities that affect the overall character – and.. that’s about it.
While this ability system is not indicative of your character’s class overall, it is part of what ultimately makes your class.. original. Personal.

Slowly as I made progress through the game the combat got easier and less awkward for me. I’m aware that during the first 30 minutes I was flailing around like an obese kid in karate class, but by the end.. I felt like a true master of the sword.

The game still has quite a few bugs they need to iron out before they release it. I got stuck in a windmill! Even though it had windows and large gaps I should theoretically be capable of squeezing through, the game refused to let me.
I almost felt as though my fate was sealed at that point. I would die that day and haunt the windmill forever. Whenever someone opened the door they’d hear me uttering under my breath “.. fuck my life.”

Some of these encounters grew to be quite challenging. Especially when they attack you in large numbers. I had to run from more than one fight just to passively recover a small amount of HP.
The gear I was getting was not making up for the increase in enemy level and damage.

The types of quests I’d gotten varied quite a bit. Ranging from traditional kill quests, to gather quests, to BURNING A SETTLEMENT TO THE GROUND!

*queue maniacal laughter*

So it was at this point, level 24, that I realized I had all but run out of normal quests to do. Instead, I was to move around the open world and participate in dynamically generated quests to level. Either that, or grind.
Mmm.
So off I went, to explore and see what the world had to offer.. little did I know the enemies were much stronger than I was.. so I died.
And found out first hand that upon player death, your corpse becomes lootable by other players. So that’s a feature I didn’t know was in the game.
I’m glad I hadn’t had the opportunity to engage in PvP combat yet as I would’ve died – that’s a guarantee – and would’ve lost my items.

Speaking conclusively here, I can say without a doubt that Gloria Victis has the potential to be a very fun open world MMORPG.. if the devs behind the game worked on fixing bugs, updating the game and officially releasing it.
The combat, although a little comical at times with how awkwardly it plays has its charm – playing like an unpolished Skyrim.
The graphics, while not stunning, fit the theme and nature of the game very well.
The story – at least translation wise, needs a lot of improvement.
The UI, and questing experience needs a lot of work. I found myself, at times, clicking my quest log to see what I needed to do and the log showing me a quest summary from a completely different quest altogether!

So again, while I do believe the game holds promise, it isn’t there yet.
Hopefully, with more time and money, they’ll be able to launch the game players that have supported them thus far deserve.
Until then, I’ll be hanging up the game.