Gladiators, are you ready? Things have GORN crazy on PSVR2 as the ludicrously violent gladiator simulator GORN makes its way onto the platform.

GORN is the extremely violent VR gladiator simulator, made by Free Lives, the developers behind Broforce, and published by Devolver Digital. Featuring a unique, fully physics-driven combat engine, GORN combatants will creatively execute their most violent gladiatorial fantasies in Virtual Reality. Unleash your inner savage as you strike down an infinite supply of poorly-animated opponents with all manner of weapons – from swords, maces, and bows, to nunchucks, throwing knives, massive two-handed war hammers, and even your own blood-soaked bare hands. The only limits to this VR face-smashing carnage are your imagination and decency.

When it comes to objectives, nothing could make this game more clear-cut than being the last man standing, however, achieving this rather simple goal is not by any means for the faint of heart. You will most assuredly work for it.

Each level takes place in a very Roman-inspired colosseum arena where you will pick up your initial weapon, offer your salute to the crowd overhead, then fight and slay increasing waves of enemies until you take on the champion of each level. Upon completion of each level, you will unlock a weapon that you can take with you into the custom game mode, and this made a fantastic practice environment where I could master particular weapons that I wasn’t so good at using.

Movement around the level is achieved in a variety of different ways, with the standard way to move being a button press and a dragging motion around the environment, so it makes for a very physical and rather exhausting experience and that’s before you add in the combat. I opted for the combination of headset-oriented smooth movement with the left sense stick and a 45-degree snap turn with the right sense stick.

You taunt your enemies by making gestures with the trigger buttons, and these will vary depending on the position of your hands, for example, palms facing toward you and pressing the trigger will extend the middle finger so you can flip them the bird, and wielding your favourite weapons is a breeze, requiring you to hold onto the grip button.

Combat feels incredible this time around. One of the biggest issues that I faced while playing this on the PSVR/PS4 was the loss of tracking. While the game did a good job, for the most part, it did get just about impossible to play sometimes with the loss of tracking. This issue is no longer a problem as the PSVR2 does an amazing job handling the tracking. I expected to experience tracking loss, specifically when using the two-handed war hammer and swinging it overhead, but much to my maniacal delight, I had no issues, even when holding the Sense controllers a fair distance away from the vision of the headset cameras.

The “as advertised” poorly animated enemies will stop at nothing to beat you to death. My most embarrassing near-death experience came from an enemy that was crawling across the ground, legs missing, and hit me with his flail, rolling it along the ground. With light fading fast and with just a pixel of life light left in my body, I managed to secure a kill and bring myself back from the brink of death. Feeling both the sense of the fear of death and the joy of overcoming the odds is hammered home in moments like this.

Receiving a very generous boost in visuals on PSVR2 is the perfect compliment to the highly-stylized cartoon blood fest. Spending a few moments to soak in some of the textures, and looking at my gloves, the leather wraps look simply incredible. For those that aren’t a big fan of loads of blood, turning this off in the options and replacing it with what resembles a popping pinata looks just as incredible, though I choose violence I had just as much fun hacking enemies to bits.

I’m a big fan of 3D audio and this game does a superb job implementing that into the game. Hearing the cheers of the crowd above, the game music intensifying in all the right places, drawing a bow across my left cheek and letting loose into the face of my enemy, all sound incredible. Nothing sounds more satisfying to me than hearing my flail winding up as I spin it faster and faster, preparing to unleash all kinds of carnage.

After many adrenaline-fueled, blood-soaked, maniacal laughter-inducing battles, I leave you with this: GORN is an extremely fun game, and it is very easy to see why it has sold over 1.5 million copies across all platforms. This highly physical and incredibly brutal game is a must-play for all PSVR2 owners and not one that I think you should miss For those that already own GORN on PSVR, this is available as a free upgrade to the PSVR2 version and well worth swinging back into.

Written by: Gary Nielsen