We Who Are About To Die, solo-developer Jordy Lakiere's new gladiatorial roguelite title is already making waves on Steam after only a few weeks in early access. The indie game sees players taking on the role of gladiatorial warriors called "aspirants," who vye for fame, gold, and glory in a series of increasingly challenging arena fights. The fights function similar to the discrete levels in most other roguelites, while players can manage their warriors in between matches by purchasing services, courting patrons, setting training regimes, and more.
The Best War Games recently spoke to Lakiere about his hopes for the title, his "overwhelming" early reception from players, historical influences, and the ideal synergy between the game's gladiatorial theme and its roguelite formula. Fans of action games, fighting games, management sims, and roguelite RPGs should keep an eye on WWAATD.
RELATED: The Difference Between Roguelite and Roguelike Games
Roguelites and Arena Combat
Lakiere has been developing WWAATD in some format for seven years. While the game was originally a simpler gladiatorial sim, Lakiere knew he had stumbled across an awesome cross-over when he thought to combine the game with a roguelite formula:
"How did this not exist yet? It’s a perfect match. Permadeath brutality, ‘rooms’ in the form of arena-based combat, and management in between; it just made sense and I got to work immediately."
Like Hades' chambers of the underworld, each arena fight constitutes a challenge of skills. But in terms of establishing a unique build--one of the greatest joys of playing roguelites—rather than randomized boons, the player gets to decide how they want to use their resources to manage their gladiator aspirant's career. The formula boasts excellent ludonarrative resonance, and also mechanically enriches a genre that can sometimes be deterministic via random drops. The management sim aspects of the game add a level of strategic skill to making each "run" or in this case, aspirant careers, feel unique.
An Overwhelming Response
Like many indie developers, Lakiere has opted to release WWAATD via Early Access to receive input from his audience. While he hoped to initially move 10,000 copies of the title over its lifetime, he met that goal in the first twenty-four hours of release, and received sixty-thousand wishlist entries in the following days. WWAATD blew up, essentially overnight, and thanks to that enormous surge in interest, he has been inundated with feedback about the game.
"One problem with skill-based games such as WWAATD is that everyone who becomes familiar with the game basically stops being able to give good insight on balance and learning curve—my opinions on balance have been essentially useless or untrustworthy for a long time, so this all has been very valuable."
RELATED: 12 Great Roguelike Games on Steam That Deserve More Attention
Lakiere forewarns players that WWAATD will be a challenging title. Its Steam page promises that even experienced gamers will need to "relearn how to fight" to be competitive in the arena. We Who Are About to Die's combat system is based on mouse movements that simulate real world physics. Advanced moves like feinting, and leg sweeps are possible, but take some getting used to. After engaging with a project over the course of thousands of hours of development, it can be easy to lose perspective on what difficulty is reasonable, and where adjustments need to be made.
Fun and Fantasy Over Historical Accuracy
We Who Are About To Die's title, by Lakiere's own admission, can be "a bit clunky as a title," but it is also extremely on-theme. The phrase comes from a salute that ancient Roman gladiators would recite in the coliseum before their matches began. That's not to say that the game is drawing on historical accuracy in a substantial way, however. Lakiere felt that he would not be able to do a historically accurate game justice. Such an undertaking would require a tremendous amount of research, and it would also be limiting in certain ways to choose one specific setting at the exclusion of others.
Instead, Lakiere based WWAATD's universe, called Terantia, on Rome, Ancient Greet, Babylon, and other gladiatorial cultures; a setting he initially developed for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. After seven years of development, folding prior world-building work into an already ambitious project makes good sense.
We Who Are About To Die is available now on Steam via Early Access.
MORE: Shumi Come Home Developer SomeHumbleOnion Details Influences and Aspirations