GORN

GORN
Information
VR/AR	VR
Developer	Free Lives
Publisher	Devolver Digital
Platform	SteamVR, Oculus Rift (Platform), PlayStation VR, Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2
Device	HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR2
Operating System	Windows, PlayStation 4, Meta Horizon OS, PlayStation 5
Type	Full Game
Genre	Action, Indie,Violent, VR, Gore
Input Device	Tracked Motion Controllers
Play Area	Room-Scale
Game Mode	Single Player, Local Multiplayer
Language	English
Review	Very Positive
Release Date	Early Access: July 10, 2017; full release (Windows): July 18, 2019; PlayStation VR: May 19, 2020; Oculus Quest: January 28, 2021; PlayStation VR2: March 2023
Price	US$19.99
App Store	Steam, Oculus Store, Meta Horizon Store, PlayStation Store
Infobox Updated	10/06/2026

GORN is a virtual reality gladiator combat game developed by the South African studio Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital. Its Steam store page calls it "a ludicrously violent VR gladiator simulator": the player fights waves of arena opponents with swords, maces, bows, nunchuks, throwing knives, warhammers or bare hands, and every weapon and body is driven by a physics simulation. The game entered Steam Early Access on July 10, 2017, left Early Access on July 18, 2019, and was later ported to PlayStation VR (2020), Oculus Quest (2021) and PlayStation VR2 (2023).

Free Lives announced one million copies sold across all platforms in July 2021, and Devolver Digital put the total at more than 1.5 million in 2023. A sequel, Gorn 2, co-developed by Cortopia Studios and Free Lives, was released on April 17, 2025.

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Checked every date, sales figure, price, review score, quote and attribution against the cited Steam, Meta, PlayStation Blog, Metacritic, OpenCritic, UploadVR, Road to VR, PC Gamer, Destructoid, Press Start, Gamereactor and 80 Level sources; infobox platforms, devices and stores checked against the same sources. About review dates.

Gameplay

The player is a gladiator who fights opponents in an arena. The campaign is made up of wave-based fights that end in boss encounters, and UploadVR's reviewer finished its handful of levels in a few hours. Beyond the campaign there is an endless survival mode and a custom arena mode with options such as a god mode, slow motion and weapon toggles. New weapons are unlocked as the player progresses. They range from swords, spears and maces to nunchuks, a pair of crab claws, a double-bladed sword and glove-mounted claws.

Combat is built on physics simulation instead of canned animations. Free Lives producer Adone Kitching wrote that the game simulates every object in the arena, including the enemies, at all times, and that the studio made weapons visibly wobble so players could see the effect of gravity and other forces on them. According to Kitching, this lets players push a shield aside, catch an enemy weapon mid-swing, use a defeated enemy as a shield against arrows, swing a severed arm as a weapon or catch an arrow in mid-air. In UploadVR's review, Jamie Feltham wrote that the rubber-like weapons help make up for the lack of haptic feedback in VR, and that opponents can be dismembered, impaled on spikes or burst apart. A low-violence option, called Piñata Mode, replaces the enemies with paper mache piñatas that burst into candy.

Movement and comfort

The default locomotion scheme has the player grab the world and pull themselves through it. On PC, smooth locomotion and a field-of-view-restricting Comfort Mode are also available. On PlayStation VR the game needs two PlayStation Move controllers, which are used for walking as well as for two-handed weapons; turning is mapped to the face buttons, with 45-degree, 90-degree and smooth turn options. The Steam version requires a room-scale play area of at least 2 m by 2 m.

Local multiplayer

The PC version supports local multiplayer for up to three additional players. They use gamepads and control arena gladiators, either teaming up with the VR player or fighting against them. In its review of the PlayStation VR version, AusGamers noted that this asymmetric Party Mode from the PC version was missing on PlayStation VR.

Development

Free Lives, the studio behind Broforce (2015) and Genital Jousting, developed GORN. Ruan Rothmann worked on the game as a programmer and as its team lead. In a 2018 Oculus blog post, Rothmann, then credited as a game designer at Free Lives, said the team "felt a game based on messing with ragdolls in VR might be good", having already built prototypes with physics animation, and that a gladiator setting "seemed like a natural fit". Kitching later wrote that the studio "wanted to make something that could only work in VR", and that bringing the game world so close to the player meant it could not rely on pre-baked animations.

GORN was first released in 2016 as a free demo for the HTC Vive, with basic combat against "poorly animated" gladiators. For the Steam Early Access release on July 10, 2017, the developers said they planned to add more weapons, more enemies and a boss encounter at the end of the game. By the time the game reached the Oculus Store for Oculus Rift on August 24, 2018, the Oculus blog listed 20 weapons, eight champions and eight unlockable caestus (hand weapons). That build also included a man-sized sea creature with giant claws, the Crustacean Crusader. Rothmann said the team had learned "the value of having an Early Access campaign" and how to use player feedback to improve the game. During about two years of Early Access the studio added weapons, opponents, co-op play and a custom language.

The full release in July 2019 added a boss named Alimta, a hand cannon weapon, giant enemies, bonus objectives for each trial, SteamVR 2.0 input and support for the Valve Index "Knuckles" controllers, along with bug fixes and performance improvements. In its launch notes on Steam, the studio said its first priority after launch was "to get the game to as many platforms as possible". The PlayStation VR and Quest versions were ported with 24 Bit Games. When the PlayStation VR2 version was announced in February 2023, Rothmann, then credited as a designer at Free Lives, wrote that the team had added "lots of new weapons, foes, and game modes" since development began.

Release

Platform	Date	Notes
HTC Vive demo	2016	Free demo
SteamVR (Windows), Early Access	July 10, 2017	Launched for HTC Vive; 2 m by 2 m room-scale area required
Oculus Rift (Oculus Store)	August 24, 2018	Released during Early Access
Windows (SteamVR and Oculus), full release	July 18, 2019	Left Early Access; Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index at US$19.99
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	May 19, 2020	Port with 24 Bit Games; US$19.99
Oculus Quest	January 28, 2021	Port with 24 Bit Games; US$20
PlayStation VR2 (PlayStation 5)	Late March 2023	Announced for March 16, 2023; free upgrade for owners of the PS4 version; US$19.99 for new buyers

The PlayStation VR version was delayed several times before release. UploadVR wrote that the port shaped up well, but noted that sharp weapons more often hit with the blunt side than on PC. It also pointed out that the PlayStation VR version had no "force pull" for grabbing items out of reach, which mattered because many PlayStation VR setups cannot track the controllers near the floor, and that smooth movement from the PC version was missing.

The Quest version was first confirmed in September 2020. In UploadVR's comparison of the three versions, the Quest release kept the dismemberment physics but showed much less blood, a scaled-back crowd in the stands and fewer enemies at once than the PC version, which can have up to five.

The PlayStation VR2 version was listed in Sony's PS VR2 launch-window lineup with a March 16, 2023 date. Press Start reported that the game had seemingly missed that date and became available at the end of March.

As of October 2026 the game is sold on Steam and on the Meta Horizon Store for Quest at a list price of US$19.99. Steam also sells it in a "GORN Collection" bundle with GORN 2.

Reception

Aggregator	Platform	Score
Metacritic	PC	85/100 (6 critic reviews)
Metacritic	PlayStation 4	68/100 (11 critic reviews)
Metacritic	PlayStation 5	No Metascore (3 critic reviews)
OpenCritic	All platforms	Top Critic Average 77; 60% of critics recommend

The PC release received "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic, while the PlayStation 4 version received "mixed or average" reviews. In UploadVR's review of the full release, Jamie Feltham called it "a toybox filled with razor-sharp playthings and endless action figures to use them on". He criticized the small amount of content, writing that it "might just be a glorified tech demo for VR combat". He also found the gamepad multiplayer fun at first but frustrating because of its "spongey controls". UploadVR later named GORN one of the ten nominees for its Overall VR Game/Experience of the Year award for 2019.

On PlayStation VR, Destructoid's Jordan Devore gave the game 7 out of 10. He wrote that the PlayStation Camera struggled with frantic attacks and the movement system late in the game, but recommended it "flaws and all" and said the PC version is "unquestionably the ideal way to play". Push Square scored the PlayStation VR version 6 out of 10. On Metacritic, the three PlayStation VR2 reviews were 75 from GamingTrend, 55 from COGconnected and 40 from Hey Poor Player. Hey Poor Player argued that newer physics-based brawlers had improved on the formula GORN helped establish.

As of October 2026 the Steam store page shows a "Very Positive" rating for English-language user reviews, with 94% of 6,393 reviews positive.

Sales

Road to VR reported that the studio had confirmed 50,000 units sold in early 2018, before the game was available on other platforms. On July 16, 2021, the game's official account announced more than one million copies sold across PC VR, PlayStation VR and Quest, without a per-platform breakdown. Road to VR estimated revenue of about US$12 million from those sales (excluding platform fees). This was its own estimate based on a US$20 price adjusted for discounts, and it also noted that Moss reached one million units at the same time. When the PlayStation VR2 version launched in 2023, Devolver Digital said the game had sold more than 1.5 million copies across all platforms.

Sequel

GORN 2 was announced on February 27, 2025. Cortopia Studios developed it in collaboration with Free Lives, and Devolver Digital published it. In the sequel the player ascends to a heavenly realm populated by the gladiators killed in the first game. It has 35 weapons, five heavenly realms, boss fights against the five sons of the God of the Afterlife, an Endless Mode and a Custom Mode. It was released on Steam on April 17, 2025.

Features

• Single-player

System requirements

Windows

Minimum

• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel i5-4590
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
• Storage: 2 GB available space

Recommended

• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel i7-4770
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
• Storage: 2 GB available space

Setup instructions

This VR game requires a play area of at least 2m x 2m.