I might have the bias of enjoying this style of combat from similar games, but it’s always just felt more rewarding to me to best your opponent in strategically and physically – it feels a lot less like luck when each fight is a battle of the mind and sword.

Yes, at times the camera gets lost and is a bit confusing, but it never lasts longer than a few seconds. You and every fictitious gladiator you are fighting against are quite literally fighting for your lives – the least they can do is make it challenging. It’s not necessarily meant to be a quick fight. There’s standard, overhead and underhand strikes, which are balanced against blocking and parrying, but the complexity lies in the 3rd-person perspective trying to coexist with the mouse being entirely in control of the camera.īecause of this, at times combat can feel slow and a bit confusing, as you really have to strategize your strikes and attacks in an attempt to land that finishing blow, but in my point of view, this enhances the overall joy of combat. There’s basic WASD movement, but on the combat side of things, the complexity of camera movement and aiming your attacks scales with however much time you’re willing to put in. We Who Are About To Die’s controls aren’t necessarily the easiest to use and master. After losing my first gladiator ‘Wrestle Crow’, I ensured to randomize my characters going forward, so their inevitable deaths weren’t as traumatizing. I really struggled adjusting to it all in my first couple of attempts (even during the tutorial), because I simply hadn’t played anything quite like We Who Are About To Die. That’s not a knock on what it delivers in any regard, it’s just different and you’ll definitely need some time coming to terms with how the controls and directional attacks all co-exist, but once it all starts to click, it’s a euphoric feeling. The game’s combat system will take a LOT of getting used to.

Evidently, I should have cared a lot less initially, because it would have made the immediate death of my character a lot less gut-wrenching.

We who are about to