Gorn 2 Review – Giddy with Goofy Gore

Gorn 2 Review

When talking about technology, six years is a very long time. In that span, a new gadget can be released and eventually be refined into a much more sophisticated product. Back in 2019, VR headsets were heavy, uncomfortable slabs of plastic, and VR games were often lamentably short and simplistic. In 2025, VR headsets are slightly less heavy and marginally more comfortable slabs of plastic. The games, however, are often much more substantial and on par with non-VR titles. This brings us to Gorn. The original was released in 2019. It was a short, arena-style, wave-based combat game with a lot of style but not much substance. Gorn 2 is a bigger, more varied, and ambitious sequel, but much of it treads familiar territory.

Same But (Slightly) Different

In Gorn, players faced off against enemies of escalating difficulty and quantity until they reached a boss and the round was over. Players used a variety of brutal melee and ranged weapons. What set Gorn apart from other gladiatorial combat games was its style. The game was over-the-top violent and gory, but its cartoony art and silly sense of humor took the edge off the violence. It was like a marriage of Monty Python and Blood Bowl, though not as clever as either.

Gorn 2 is essentially the same game, but nearly twice as long and with more variety. It’s still ridiculously violent, with oceans of cartoon blood and stylized dismemberment. The game’s sense of lowbrow humor remains intact, and there’s a bit more narrative that manages to carry the player from arena to arena, each with a different thematic hook.

There’s much more variety in the weapons this time around, and the environments are filled with traps and devious devices that can be used to impale or deconstruct enemies from their limbs and viscera. Overall, Gorn 2’s violence is much more inventive than before and this allows combat to be potentially more creative and less repetitive. Enemies themselves are still laser-focused on the task at hand, and haven’t discovered tactical approaches that would be fun to counter. Keeping with Gorn’s cartoon violence, the weapons bend like rubber toys. 

Taking the Hit, or Not

If Gorn 2 was more polished, the humor and violence would add up to an entertaining good time. Where things fall apart is when the rubber meets the road, or maybe the axe meets the skull. To begin with — and this almost kills the good time entirely — hit detection and hit boxes are incredibly inconsistent. You can flail at an enemy seemingly inches away, almost smelling their brutish sweat, and make no contact, instead clipping through them entirely. On the other hand, the player can receive a fatal melee wound from a much larger distance and little tactile feedback. The inconsistent hit boxes result in a lot of wasted movement and a general feeling of sloppiness and unrefined mechanics.

To a large extent, “unrefined mechanics” is a feature more than a bug. Dark Souls this ain’t. You flail and wail and try not to get hit, though there are shields and other defensive tactics. That’s all good fun, for a while at least. Less fun are enemies that get stuck on things like the edge of floor tiles. They just stand there weaving like a loincloth-wearing drunken party guest.

The game’s writing and humor are pretty much what you’d expect, and match the comic tone of the visuals. The vocal performances are fairly one-note but they’re recorded inconsistently. Sometimes the audio sounds like it was recorded in a tiled bathroom. You can almost hear the toilet flush.

Not Quite there Yet

Gorn 2 offers substantially more gameplay than the original Gorn. The arenas, enemies, and environments offer enhanced opportunities for creative mayhem. The first game’s way-over-the-top stylized violence and gore transfer intact, along with its goofy sense of satire. If Gorn 2 was a non-VR first-person action game, it would work pretty well. As a VR title, the consistently inconsistent hitboxes and bugs undermine the potentially cathartic combat. Six years out from the first game, players should probably expect a more refined and polished experience.

***Meta Quest 3 code provided by the publisher for review***