I kind of want to recommend this game, and I absolutely do for people who prefer a "this is my story"-approach to games.
Subjectively though, the game bored me. The gameplay felt repetitive and the interface somewhat clunky. I liked the story, but the "game" aspect felt ... stretched? Not sure. The excursions into the city, while interesting at first, got quite boring as well (run and rotate camera until a guard was spotted, walk or hide, repeat).

I think I'm just not the target audience for the game. If you liked This War Of Mine or other games that explore the "background" of war and disasters, you should play this game.

Short Answer: I'd argue that this game does everything "This War of Mine" does, but better.

"This War of Mine" does do a good job at what it set out to do. Don't get me wrong. It's a fine piece of Art, but Siege Survival takes everything TWoM did good, and does it A LOT better.

EZ recommendation. Not a question! If you're uncertain, wait for a sale.



... Long Answer:

Remember when This War of Mine got meme'd on? I do. From small details completely derailing what the game set out to do (The game's whole tone was "War Bad", and during the 2010's when the game came out, that was definitely the train the game decided to ride), to a variety of other reasons, as a result, the game ended up suffering under it's own weight a little, due to War being... well, i dunno - a pretty broad topic that can't exactly be summed up by "War Bad".


Also, the Muscovite-Ukraine Conflict would kick up in 2020, where Moscow announced their infamous "3 day operation" (now entering it's 3rd/4th year, and as of this review being written, is still ongoing), which, uuuuhhhhhhhhhhh...

Yeah. Try approaching a Ukranian and tell him "War bad. Just don't fight" and I hope someone has a camera to videotape the absolute beating you'd rightfully get.

Which is also extra ironic, because This War of Mine actually had a fundraiser for Ukraine... which resulted in them alienating their audience, because "War Bad! Context disregarded!" tends to draw in a crowd of people who... uh... are good at disregarding context. So yea that got them backlash for zero good reason.


Because yeah, no ♥♥♥♥ Sherlock. War is bad, but as time marched on, life has proven that there are high amounts of exasperatingly diverse (and above all, PERFECTLY GOOD AND SOUND) reasons to FIGHT when wars inevitably crop up, which they will.

That was the brick wall that This War of Mine hit face-first, and hit so hard, it broke itself on. That kinda happens when your whole game is nothing but "War bad, regardless of context!"

Also, we might even start seeing wars over water soon, due to infrastructure being built that would redirect tons of rivers, resulting in lots of people dying of famines in the countries dependent on those currently existing rivers.

And let's be real: if the Price of peace is your extermination to feed the existence of someone that hates you for the crime of existing... why SHOULDN'T you go to war against them? You have a right to exist if nothing else!

Yes, today we have tik-tok footage of people being blown up by drones with people editing CGI fortnite dances over people dying in IRL wars. Yes, today we have bombs. Yes, today we have guns. But we also have human rights and lines that we at least TRY not to cross.

Back then, such lines just weren't a thing.

Siege survival centers itself around, as the name implies - Siege Warfare, the game nails everything This War of Mine was going for, without running into its issues.

This game does a damn good job keeping that specific horror of war front-and-center, as you play as a bunch of stragglers trying to help the Garrison fight against the enemy in any way you can.

Sure, the Garrison and Lords of the Castle ain't exactly paragons of virtue. It's implied that the only difference between them and the invaders is that the garrison genuinely doesn't want to kill you (or at least doesn't have a good reason to).

Considering that you are caught in the middle of a siege, and that the Garrison isn't the force that burned your life to the ground and killed people for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time... I'd say that's reason enough to stick around and do what you can to help avenge the life and lives lost at the hands of this seemingly random invasion.

Sure, your characters can't exactly fight, but they don't have to. Fighting is not even in your job description (or oath as a serf to the Lord, or however Feudal society citizenship worked. I don't know).

All you need to do is scavenge the city for whatever the Garrison needs, so they can do their job until the enemy army runs out of supplies, gets bored, and eventually leaves (which was how you won when being besieged, back in the day).

As you search the city, you can just...see what the enemy army has done.
It wasn't done with bombs, or planes, or modern technology.

Remember what I said earlier about pre-Napoleonic war being more horrifying than modern war? This is what I mean:
There is literally a random dude, hung from a tree in the center of the town. No context is ever given. The poor guy is just hanging there, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Back in those days, you were not going to get shot with a gun, or blown up with grenades, or killed in a drone strike. Instead, you were hacked to death by other people. If you were lucky, you died to shock. If you were unlucky, you got to live long enough to watch them repeat the process to someone next to you.

The besieging army committed these acts with their own hands.

This War of Mine felt off because everything felt way too detached, the characters felt like massive hypocrites, and very obviously the developers did a good job with what they had, but a lot of things fell flat, didn't fit, didn't land, and then world events would kick off which then lead to the game aging in a particularly bizarre direction, where the entire game feels like you are somehow playing a half-truth, or you were never getting the full context to what was going on.


Siege Survival: Gloria Victis on the other hand, everything feels up front and PERSONAL.

The enemy army PERSONALLY hung a random dude for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The enemy army PERSONALLY locked people in their homes and lit the buildings on fire, where you can find their remains - why? Because they were serfs to the wrong Lord.
The enemy army PERSONALLY did these horrible things, and did them with their own hands.


The "War is bad" theme remains intact, but now you have CONTEXT. You have a damn good reason to still participate in that war without killing anyone yourself (which is awkwardly true to life), and that is where This War of Mine failed.


"War bad cuz humans bad" is just another half-truth.
Personally, I blame games like Spec Ops: the Line for pushing railroaded "you should feel bad for playing our $60 paperweight" narratives that just don't land... like at all which is also bad because Spec Ops: the Line was criticizing video game violence-heroism that had oversaturated the 2010's market at the time and the entire game didn't even have a war going on - it was just a FUBAR situation where the character Martin Walker has a 4-hour long schitzo episode and drags the player along for a wild ride that blames the player for playing a game that the player spent money on.


Siege Survival: Gloria Victis on the other hand gets it correct. It doesn't run into the same problems that other games have, and it doesn't attack the player through the 4th wall for playing it and I love Siege Survival for having the balls to commit to the "War is bad, but you must face it" angle.

I want more games that refuse to shy away from how god-awful war is, but at the same time, give you, the player a good reason to fight it.

"Get off my lawn" as we're seeing with Ukraine VS Moscow will always be one of billions of good reasons to fight a war - in that case, against a foreign aggressor.

As time marches on, we are going to see a "rebellious teen" phase of games that will do similar things and I hope I'm still alive to see it.

I don't think the Devs are gonna bother reading my review, but if you do, hey! You guys did an awesome job, I think you nailed what you were going for, and thank you for this unique gaming experience that actually accomplished what other games failed to do!


God bless, and thank you for your time.