New physics fighter Gladio Mori sends animators where they belong: The gladiator pit

Anybody who has ever watched a sword fight in a movie (or even fencing at the Olympics) has probably had that little voice at the back of their head saying "He was wide open! They could have ducked!". Well, murder-backseaters, you've got the chance to prove yourself that blade genius that you think you are in Gladio Mori, a physics-driven gladiatorial sandbox new to Early Access where you get to animate your own moves.

What you get here is a relatively simple-looking over-the-shoulder fighting game where medieval mannequin-men stab each other to death. That'd make for a rather limited fighting game normally, but the most intriguing part here is that you get to create your own moves. Getting deep into your character's IK bones and animating your puppet's motions keyframe by keyframe, then assigning those moves to various buttons.

So long as the physics check out (no wiggling your halberd around like it's made of styrofoam) and your character has the requisite limbs to play out the attack, it should work. Then you hit the arena against AI bots, online opponents or even local split-screen and see how well your imagined fighting style would actually hold up in a brawl where everyone's holding some kind of extremely deadly edged weapon.

Gladio Mori's damage modelling seems realistic enough, which is to say 'unsettlingly so', tracking damage to arteries and muscle groups and reflecting what damage to key parts of the body does. While these mannequin-like characters can't feel pain or scream (probably for the best), even a nicked hamstring could have you barely able to move, and the human body is just packed with places where even a glancing hit could cause you to bleed out fast. So, all you've got to do is hit one of those points while not being hit yourself. Simple!

Well, probably not. While never a particularly popular niche, this is ground well worn by other games. Most enduringly successful is Toribash, where you control your character's muscles in turn-based ragdoll combat. In the late 90s, the quirky Die By The Sword had you waggling your sword around using mouse or joystick inputs, making for chaotic, improvised battles. And of course, the brutal damage model feels like a nod to Square's experimental PS1 fighting game Bushido Blade.

The Early Access version of Gladio Mori costs $15.99/£13.49 on Steam and contains "all key features" of the game, with Plebian Studio aiming to spend the next year expanding the range of arenas, adding Steam Workshop support (letting you share or borrow other people's animations) and fleshing out the graphics over the next year or so, gradually raising the price as new bits fall into place. It feels like there's potential here, but Steam is a deadly enough gladiator pit for small studios. I can only hope that this quirky little fighter isn't about to join those who are about to die.