Blackthorn Arena: Reforged
Re-experience the thrill and challenges of managing a Gladiator arena in this management/simulation game. With new content, new graphics, Quality of Life updates, and all DLCs packed into this new experience, this is how Blackthorn Arena was meant to be experienced.
Blackthorn Arena: Reforged is a simulation, strategy and fantasy game
developed by PersonaeGame Studio
and published by Light Up Games.
Released on November 02nd 2024 is available only on Windows
in 11 languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian and Polish.
It has received 727 reviews of which 511 were positive and 216 were negative resulting in a rating of 6.8 out of 10. 😐
The game is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Blackthorn Arena: Reforged into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Blackthorn Arena: Reforged through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7/8/10 (64 bits)
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3450 (3.1 GHz) / AMD FX-6300 X6 (3.5 GHz)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2 GB, GeForce GTX 660/Radeon HD 7870
- Storage: 30 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SSD Required!!!
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Blackthorn Arena is my favorite game. I love the choice of randomly generated missions of varying type available on any given turn; pick your own adventure. You still have the core story missions that occur on set turns in the game, but your participation in most of them is still optional. The variety of skill trees, weapon specializations, and character attributes make customizing your gladiator a deep and meaningful aspect of the game - you will spend time managing your team! And there are other facets of these individuals to manage as well, including their Obedience, Morale, Health, and any additive character traits they may have by default or through game experiences (e.g. gain the Bully trait to do 10% more damage to lower level opponents, or something like that). There is cooking, alchemy, and blacksmithing skills your slaves can learn to provide more value to your team and push them further into greatness. Every playthrough is different. Every playthrough is an opportunity to try different builds, both for solo fights and group encounters, and trust me you will very much want to. But I warn you: This game is not easy. Do not expect to win until you can find some skill, equipment, and attribute combinations that work well together. Some will be more obvious than others. There's just so much to do in this game, from clearing out (short) dungeons for loot, raiding caravans for money, attacking bandit camps to steal slaves, challenging other arena's champions to hosting your own games, fighting anything from 1v1s to 4v4s, gladiators and champions alike who challenge you and put their freedom on the line, managing your team and everything about them, and praying that the traveling merchant will show you something worthy when you need it. It's such a good game. You will lose sometimes. You will be mad when your best gladiator gets unlucky and you lose your bet money, or worse, their life. That's how it rolls! Find a way to win in spite of it all! Rise to the challenge! There are a million ways to do it, I know because I've tried at least two million and I think won half. I hope you love it as much as I do. I think it's the best.
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After watching TV series Spartacus, I really wanted a similar game, thanks to this game I got my wish. Train slaves purchased from market, set which weapons and armor they use in battle, what skills are given to them along with distribute attribute points every time they level up. For those who like fantasy this game also provides many choices: there are elves, dwarves, orcs, ninjas, mages, werewolves etc. Then my favorite feature is side quest, we can control our gladiator to explore in dungeon, castle or cave to looting various items!
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Unfathomably Based Game. I've played it for a few hours now, and I've found it really enjoyable- with the potential to be amazing with more polishing / tweaking / some additions. Some additions that could make the game better: >More variety of "random events" that occur at the beginning of each day. I've seen the "Two of your Gladiator's had a Disagreement!" event almost daily, and it honestly becomes a detriment to the experience after awhile. ------------- >I would love to see more variety when it comes to armor- at least in the 'early game' where (I think?) I'm still at. All of the armor that I've come across in shops / rewards all look like leathery brown flaps, with almost no variation between them. The game could really use some chainmail, some padded gambesons, some bikini armors, some plate mail, an ultra-cheap breastplate made out of tree-bark, just more variety in the armor / clothing department. Being able to customize / personalize your characters in games like these is important- because it raises the stakes so much higher than it otherwise would be. You're not just losing "Soldier #3", you're losing someone that you sunk time into editing / giving a personality. The character-creation is astoundingly good, honestly one of the best implementations that I've come across in any game. Any game that lends you so much freedom that you can create everything from hot elven babes to gollum-esque monstrosities is automatically a thumb-up in my book. Just needs some more varied clothing / armor options to bring it from an 8/10 to a 10/10 in that department. ------------- >I would like to see more incentive to let enemies live at the end of combat. So far, every combat that I've won, there was absolutely no reason to let the enemy combatants live. I would like to see it be a balance between "pleasing the audience" VS "pleasing the owner of the arena". ------------- >Graphically, I feel like the world would look a lot better by introducing a little bit of "bloom" to the lighting to soften it up. As it is, everything looks almost *too* clear and has very sharp edges / aliasing, and it really lends to an unnatural appearance, in spite of the overall style being good. ------------- >in keeping with the Roman influences, "renting" your gladiators out to noble lords/ladies for a small sum would be a nice feature. ------------- >Custom Portraits for your character would be a nice touch, as there are currently very few to choose from- and there's no better system on the market than just letting the player add their own 512x512 PNGs to a folder and uploading them themselves. ------------- >Being able to see how much money I have during the "slave trader merchant" event would be great. ------------- >I can definitely see why people are frustrated with the lack of guidance at the beginning, but after a half hour of trial-and-error I felt like I had a decent grasp of the game's systems. It might be good to *make* the player open the Tutorial section of the Manual so that they know where it is- I had no idea it existed until a couple hours in, reading over the UI buttons. ------------- >I would like to be able to view my gladiator-roster while I'm at the market, so that I'm able to better pick-and-choose weapons and armor to match their vocations. ------------- >Brow color does not change with hair color? ------------- >It took me awhile to even realize that there was an in-game manual at the top of the screen. It might be a good idea to force the player to interact with it right at the beginning of the game, to avoid confusion and frustration. ------------- Overall, lots of stuff that I would like to see tweaked / added, but as it stands it's a very enjoyable game. The developer seems to be very consumer-friendly, providing free keys to the people that bought the last game. (This game is my first experience, I didn't try the previous interation). I hope to see updates continue in spite of the negative reception of the launch, because this game has so much potential (a dirty word in 2024, I know) to be something that you can spend hundreds of hours in.
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Is this game clunky? Yes. Is it buggy? Well, sometimes. Does the UI and gameplay feel like it's 2010? Yep. Sooooo is it any good then? Yes. Yes it is. Blackthorn Arena "Reforged" is one or maybe two levels up from the original and it still does what it intended to do : letting you manage a bunch of gladiators in your own arena and beyond. It's not an easy game and it really lacks explanations but once you get used to the wild 90s style of gaming, you will get your fair share of fun. Fun meaning, you will loose...a lot. And once you learn how to win, you'll be in for a nice ride of either clicking or idle gaming your way through the game. Both options are valid here, since the AI in auto combat does pretty well actually. You manage your fighters, level em up, get them some nice weapons and armour and once in a while solve some pretty decent quests and challanges. All in all it's a good management game, not a good tactical combat game. The AI can be wonky at times but it IS usually better at getting stuff done, than you in manual mode. So don't be shy and give it a go. Also, yes it will be a very VERY grindy playthrough if you actually want to get anywhere in this game. If you don't mind the grind, you'll be fine, but if grindy games aren't your thing then there's nothing here that could make this game enjoyable for you. Move on. Do something else. Nothing to see here. Graphics are...okayish...this is not Unreal 5 level of detail, it's Unity and an old version at that. But then again Dwarf Fortress back in the day didn't have graphics at all, so yeah. The soundtrack is however rather bland. So I stick to mute the music and just let some Witcher 3 OST run in the background...this actually really makes the fights feel kinda nice. Overall Blackthorn Arena : Reforged is a flawed gem. The concept is amazing, the content plenty and the general idea behind this is really just very VERY good. But on the technical side it's really bad and it lacks the "Oomph!" in more cinematic combat and overall design. I'd still say that you should give it a chance and maybe we'll get a Blackthorn Arena 2 one day where the mediocre aspects have been polished out.
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The game about gladiatorial fights with the possibility of a variety of leveling as the game there were various things as the game is really hard
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 30 December 2024 01:00 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 18 January 2025 22:51 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:54 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 11:58 |
Online players
56
Developer
PersonaeGame Studio
Publisher
Light Up Games
Release
02 Nov 2024
Platforms