From Brain Seal Ltd and PlayWay S.A. comes Dominus Gladiatus, a game all about purchasing salves, forging them into gladiators, and unleashing them into fierce, crimson-soaked spectacles.

“Dominus Gladiatus is a brutal gladiator management simulator where you recruit, train and equip gladiators and make life or death decisions throughout a deadly tournament against rival Domini.”

Captain Oveur: “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”

Joey would be around 56 or 57 years old now, and instead of watching silver-screen sand-and-sandal epics, he could be playing games about them. But the burning question is: would he really want to?

Dominus Gladiatus is refreshingly straightforward to grasp. You select one of several leaders presiding over their own ludus, essentially a training school for gladiators. Each leader brings a specific perk to the table, such as boosted morale or discounted slaves. Once your leader is chosen, your overarching mandate is simple: defeat rival domini and their champions in the bloody arena. That is essentially the sum total of the setup and narrative.

At its core, Dominus Gladiatus is a management sim. You start with a modest purse of gold, buy a slave, and sink the remainder of your funds into training. Successful bouts line your pockets with more gold, which is then ploughed straight back into your ludus. You hire more hands, expand your training regimen, kit out your fighters with shiny new gear, and upgrade your training quarters with rooms that grant various passive benefits and bonuses. This loop forms the heart of the game, where you will spend the bulk of your time building up your establishment.

The combat itself consists entirely of auto-battles over which you possess zero direct control. Consequently, you had better ensure your gladiator is thoroughly prepared before stepping through the gates. Once a fighter claims a certain number of victories, they earn the right to seek their freedom. At this crossroads, you can either grant manumission or take the whip to them and keep them shackled to your service. Naturally, one choice bolsters overall ludus morale, whilst the other tanks it. You can probably guess which is which.

Keeping morale high is vital to keeping your fighters in high spirits so they perform better in the ring. Between bouts and training drills, you must manage fatigue, rest your fighters, and occasionally reward them for a job well done. Before long, you transition from managing a single terrified soul to overseeing a formidable small army.

The game features an in-game timer, though it is refreshingly relaxed and auto-pauses whenever you complete an action, such as a gladiator finishing a training session, allowing you to plot your next move at your own pace. You are given a total of roughly 120 in-game days to dismantle all your rivals. While the clashes are hands-off, there is a decent degree of variety on offer, ranging from classic one-on-one duels to chaotic multi-gladiator skirmishes and visceral battles against wild beasts.

Dominus Gladiatus projects an air of tactical depth initially, but after barely an hour of play, the cracks begin to show. Once you train up a half-decent champion, and a few handy reserves for backup, the challenge evaporates, turning the game into an absolute breeze.

The fundamental gameplay loop is satisfying, but only in short, fleeting bursts. Because the scraps are entirely passive, they quickly grow tedious. You are left sitting on your hands, watching the screen until the dust settles. Even with multi-fighter melees and beast brawls thrown into the mix, you remain a helpless spectator.

Once you unlock the fatigue-reduction upgrade (which takes very little time), the entire experience becomes a walk in the park. Training boils down to picking a single stat to boost, resting to clear fatigue, fighting, resting again, and repeating ad nauseam. Dominus Gladiatus swiftly devolves into a pedestrian affair devoid of genuine challenge or strategic depth.

To top it all off, I hit a massive, game-breaking bug. After defeating three of my rivals, I queued up the next fixture, only for my opponent’s gladiators to spawn directly inside the arena scenery. They were entirely immobilised, and my fighters couldn’t land a blow. I hard-reset the game and reloaded, same issue. I uninstalled and reinstalled, still broken. So I didn’t get to the end credits for this review because the game had this huge bug.

Available now for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, Dominus Gladiatus is an okay diversion, but it is painfully shallow, and its boundaries become glaringly obvious after a couple of hours. Perhaps with a raft of updates and patches, specifically one targeting massive game-breaking bugs, it might be worth tossing a few coins at.