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Game
Game2020
Blackthorn Arena
Developer PersonaeGame Studio
Blackthorn Arena is a strategy/management sim with a real-time/turn based combat system, set in a world of mythical monsters and classic fantasy races. Play as the master of Blackthorn Arena, train your slaves into gladiators, forge them into your champions, and send them to fight for your glory! From the Steam store page
192 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Jun 23, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
58
Mixed
108 positive · 77 negative
95% range 51–65%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 108 | 77 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
7 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
2,601 of 3,772 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 192 · most liked firstWish i could recommend this game really do, But seriously ... Devs who release DLC`s while their Vanilla game is still Buggy and crashing? this is just lack of respect to the community.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tip: Begin by going to the Role Library, and creating the gladiators you want to show up in the world. Only then start the game. Finding good rng gladiators is nearly impossible, and anyway who doesn't prefer to create their own characters in an rpg? I've had lots of fun leading my little band of lowly slaves to glory. There is just something awesome about watching that cute little heavily armored dwarf that you started with, beating the devil out of a huge troll or whatever. The Gladiators,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Developers have abandoned this to make a new game with the same assets and engine. You're not going to build a supportive community that way Personae. It's a pity because there's a diamond in the rough here. For those reading, don't support this kind of behaviour. Spend your money elsewhere.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You know what, FK the Dev, community constantly asking them for bug fixing, workshop and mods, were told they will be addedd, two years coming back, still not done, yet you all moved on to your next game. Well Fk you all, Fk this game, and Fk your future game, Will never give you Fks any of my money ever again. I will live to see this game company close down
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is real gem in the rough. Great game. Shame the devs abandoned, without giving us a workshop and the tools to create mods. This game is more challenging, has much better gameplay, and a deeper strategy, than some reviews on here say! BUT it is a buggy mess..real BUGGY. Says alot about the developers, and their future games, to leave Blackthorn Arena in THIS state. BOO!!!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have seen a ton of review bombing just because this developer moved on to another game. They are a small company and they put over 2 years of updates into this game. They priced it well for what you get and expect and offered very affordable additions if you would like to add a little more to the game. I'm not sure how long people expect a tiny game studio to spend on a single game that isn't making them any more money. Sure they didn't give us everything we asked for but eventually money…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ten days into my first game, one of my male gladiators fell in love with one of my other female gladiators. They dated for a little bit. But then, he realized that women cant handle a peen the way a man knows how to wield one. So he decided to be gay from that point on and proceeded to break up with her for his new found love. "The Bussy" She got really butt hurt that he wasent making her butt hurt, so she ran away from the arena, presumably because i also had piss poor security. Then two of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The developer is more focused in cosmetic DLCs than fixing the game bugs, stay away until he changes the posture! (You can't safely use the market because it CDT 70% of the time!)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Update: The devs have abandoned this game to work on their other title. This is a complete sham, if you want a game that scratches the same itch, but has actually competent devs get: We who are about to die As long as the Dev's wont fix the game i can't reccomend it, its somewhat fun, and there is definitely lots of potential, but man, there has been two DLC's released but my base game simply doesnt work, and the patch which was planned for june has been pushed back to the end of the July.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'd really like to love this game, but I can't. The UI needs vast improvement and balancing is a big issue early on. I'm just not really having much fun. Maybe I'll try again later. And besides that, the practice of releasing paid DLC while a game is in this state is an EGREGIOUS one.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →seems to be dead, unfortunately. more content, bugfixes and updates would have been necessary and quite appreciated...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game a mess, and far from finished. The dev team has never fixed bugs from inception. I wouldn't recommend this game and anything they attempt to in the future. This would be a good game if it had a lot less bugs, and little less grind,
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →♥♥♥♥ this game, and it's RNG, try to outpace the NPC arenas all you want, they WILL outpace/ outgear you leaving you only cheese ways to defeat them long term. you can make every fight and only have T2 gladiators vs level 15s with T3 by mid game. Dont believe me? Waste as many hours as I did trying different methods on this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RNG. 0/10, would refund if I could.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →complete and utter scam game!!!!! turn based a lie! total lie. and they have done zero to fix it in what over a year? DO NOT BUY!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →please fix the settings, it's been 3 months now. sorry for the bad review but i have no choice cause it's unplayable in this state.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buggy, looks like ass, has horrible pathing where apparently you can't shoot arrows over a trap that isn't interrupting anything. Some fights can go horribly wrong or well if you save-scum enough times. Verdict: I love it. As a Gladiator management game it's pretty fun - and this one feels nice and indie. Endless replayabiliity and a bunch of different builds to mess around with. Also you can make your gladiators all thiccy as heck which is hilarious. Sometimes it's the somewhat unfinished…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is complete. This is the finished product. Bugs and all, there does not appear to be anymore support for the game! So how can I recommend this game? It is fun, I sunk my fair share of hours into the game, bought the DLC (which I am less inclined to recommend) and have recently downloaded it again. There are a couple decent games in the gladiator style genre. This game is on par or better then those as they all have bugs, quirks and kinks in them. It is that simple if you think $1 or…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game, but the AI is completely stupid, no matter how I set them to run. You will be killed by rats with a level 7 character over and over and over again. Stamina regens at a pathetic rate and leveling is not intuitive nor is it fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Riddled with bugs, Players AI is stupid while the computer AI is very good.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have been stuck in loading screen since I bought the game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TL:DR? The real time with pause controls, UI, gladiator management, fights, and the game mechanics are all pretty bad. I could spend an hour explaining why. Just take my word for it. No? You actually want some reasons? Okay, then this won't be as short as I promised. Here's the NTL:HTR (not too long:happy to read). Gladiators will step on obvious traps or hazards in the arena even after you tell them to move somewhere else. Once they engage with an enemy they will sometimes circle…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played early access games that weren't as buggy and unoptimized as this. Yet, for whatever reason, instead of fixing the actual game, they just release some DLC in an attempt to milk this puppy for as much as they possibly can. There's a reason I only have 6 hours on record - it's cause that's how many hours of bugs I can play through. Apparently I've found my limit. They obviously care very little for the community and have no plans on actually listening to their customers.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi! The game itself is ok, the few hours I¨'ve gotten to play and I enjoyed the game. Is it the best out there ? No, but it's still very fun to play. I just wished I could put some more hours into the game, but that¨s not possible for me.. The Company that made this game is a small studio with limited funds, and that shows in the game. I have a game breaking bug that doesn't allow me to play the game, and I have been stuck at "Getting Game Ready" for Months and still waiting for a reply…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →horrible balancing constantly tells you to win a game when you first start and all the arenas are level 10 and by the time you can get a slave that high of a level you either go bankrupt or they raise the levels to be well above you games impossible without cheating
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →terrible design, retarded unit pathing, tons of bugs, but a good game idea, buy it on sale.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately this game doesn't feel finished. The tutorial is messy, and the turn-by-turn mode has game-breaking bugs.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →best gladiator game currently
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buggy as hell, but still enjoyable. The biggest drawback is that your worst enemy is always going to be the RNG, and you'll most likely be save-scumming quite a bit to find gladiators with skills, traits, and classes that kind of work together and aren't contradictory, or decent equipment. Most of the bugs are nuisances (like if you try to name a save file when saving then any hotkeys you press will still open the menus they tied to) or graphical (floating weapons), although I've found a few…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PCDD) Steam Sales Tavern Manager Simulator $8.44 ow.ly/bK3Q50VUFzN Blackthorn Arena: Reforged $12.49 ow.ly/KrsZ50VUFzO Lil Gator Game $9.99 ow.ly/eEPk50VUFzE Laundry Store Simulator $5.99 ow.ly/UylH50VUFzP
unlabelledView post →Blackthorn Arena: Reforged, a gladiator company management game, released on Steam.
unlabelledView post →What can I say, its buggy and incomplete, but its actually pretty enjoyable if you can get past that. Have played, uninstalled, and reinstalled multiple times. Worth a shot.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DNB Way better games you can get for 20$
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is not even finished, too many bugs to count, This should be labeled as early access, The game is fine, but marketing this as a finished game is simply false advertising.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Best gladiator simulator game that I've ever seen or played. Good progression. Feels rewarding than toilsome (not too grindy). Combat feels similar to the Dragon Age game series, but I feel Blackthorn Arena has a better combat formula in that you don't feel as if your combat bar is full of a bunch of useless abilities. Gear choice between battles feels meaningful. I feel rewarded for mixing and matching between class trees(called genres) to find what I like the best. The 3 slave markets…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here is this weeks schedule! Big thanks to Personae Game Studio for the key to Blackthorn Arena: Reforged and DreamateGames for the key to New Arc Line and thanks to @keymailer.bsky.social for being the middle man! Also DS3 is moved to Friday because of Gobble Gobble day. Will be on YT & Twitch
unlabelledView post →I try hard not to be negative in life, ultimately trying not to be negative, for negatives sake. This is one of the worst games I have ever played, bad camera angles/depths, bad combat, bad ui, bad mechanics. It's hard to find something good to say about it: possibly good depth of equipment.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Looking for a game similar to Gladius that I played growing up. Overall a lot of fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, here we are again. Another review on another game. This game, Blackthorn Arena. I had a lot of fun with this one. The controls are fairly straight forward and the difficulty level leave room for any kind of approach to the arena style combat. There is a rather deep character design, from making your own gladiators, to skill development and as a casual gamer even if you aren't amazing at it, there is a lot of fun to have. That being said, the game does have a variety of "Jank" at times.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well. Apart from having no sound (cutscenes had sound, but not the actual game itself), all of the settings reseting every time I restart the game, endless loading screen when I press play after having created my character, unresponsive UI and a whole heap of spelling errors, I'd say 10/10. Easily.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game and I'm having some fun with it, but I'm having an equal amount of frustration with it as well. It was a coin flip to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. This could be an incredible game, I certainly thought so when I looked at the pictures and video and description. A management sort of game, that's well done and has interesting combat. But you can see the good stuff already, so I'll tell you about the frustrations. -Crafting. Let's start with the blacksmith. You can craft…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is just so friggin CUMBERSOME! Every single thing you do in the game feels like it's requiring Herculean effort. I play a game to relax, not work up a sweat accomplishing mediocre tasks!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →How anyone could give this a positive rating is beyond me. the combat is super random and level means nothing. Traps are a nightmare as your gladiators will without a doubt walk straight into them constantly. I may have just not seen what supposed to be good in this game. But i highly doubt it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Although some of the mechanics were a bit off-putting, I enjoyed the concept and execution of the skills and leveling of the characters. The biggest downfall was the time mechanic which made you feel like failure wasn't an option. With a gladiator sim you'd expect losses to be quite frequent, and yet the game pressures you into this sense of perfection in order to progress. They announced a remaster and at first I was shocked thinking they were hoping to grab some cash. Good guy devs here are…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dev move on to the next project when the game still full of bugs and not finish, Concern that before you put money to their game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buggy? Yes. Fun? Also Yes. It is very unfortunate that development stopped on this game, it was one of those gems in the rough that could have become a one of a kind. While there are tons of things I could complain about, it's honestly just due to neglect, things that could easily be solved. It is disappointing that the game was left in what is pretty much a Early Access state of being. This is the type of game that PersonaeGame Studios should return to and keep working on, otherwise it…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is janky as all hell, but the game's bones are amazing. The RPG system is engaging and fun, and it feels really good to level characters. Combat is where the game really shines. Skills feel impactful, builds are important. There aren't a ton of games like this. If you're not super into gladiators or RPGs you might not get as much mileage as I did, but this game has something to it that's worth checking out if you're at all interested.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi I have played this game for 60 hours and now i feel i could give a review on this game my review will be fair and honest good or bad. Firstly i found this game somewhat limited due to the level cap imposed on your gladiators it is set at 25 and needs to be more increased so to get a lot of game play out of this game so it is money well spent. Also the game info could be better such as the game does not tell you what to do with the 3 Runestones after you have the 3 of them which i feel is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i can not recommend to buy this game, its a bugy mess. beside of that it isn't hard, its straight unfair to the player. full of sound bugs, crashes, visual bugs and freezes after fights. and it gets even more frustrating after the difficulty raises and the game starts to throw champions against you. all in all it feels very unfinished and unbalanced. if you wanna play it, wait for a huge discount or better pirate it first. sad to say but at this state, its not worth the time or a single buck.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought the game a year ago and it had the bug of the endless loading screen. Since I was really curious about it I have bought it again but the problem still stands. Outrageous!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lul, Git Wrigity-wrecked, sun! After 13 hours, I'm pretty sure that's what the game would say if it were a person. In short. There are several QoL improvements that could be made, and there are glitches (like selling 99 of something you only have 2 of) but if you can look past those, the game is pretty fun. (I've played this game for 13 of the last 30 hours at a point in my life where I can only stay interested in a game for about 45 minutes MAX.) It's a very unforgiving game and like me,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is f*cking garbage
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanna love this game but at the moment there's far more Con's than Pro's.. Many game breaking bugg's where it will make it impossible to move on in the game, Etc you get black screen that are constant & the biggest problem is you'll run into is after a battle a victory screen will pop up which isnt bad, The bad thing is it wont disapear which will prevent you from moving on even if you load the game you'll face the same thing over and over again. Tried unistalling fixing problems but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great concept, but execution is a bit lacking. It is a bit buggy, especially in regards to units disappearing into walls and floors, and needing to restart. By default the game does autosaving, which I would recommend you keep on. The UI is almost unusable, and the text is all super tiny. This could be a great game if it had a little polish. But as is, it is still servicable for folks who are into tactical squad based management games. There is enough here that I'm going to change…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Actually if we're doing "games you'd think exist but don't" it's crazy to me that there's no good gladiator/arena management game. If I missed one let me know but I don't think so. I mean there's Blackthorn Arena but it's not good. They even made it twice but no.
unlabelledView post →best gladiator/arena based game around. player has to be a veteran to really dive deeper into it and see what it has to offer. would love to see a more storytelling version in the sequel. The DS is amazing, so is the game loop and engine. Just needs a strong storyline with VOs, and its a made franchise.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →trashfire update/release, no one can get it, they should of just updated the game and been done w/ it and not made up try to go to THIER 3rd party site
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very fun. Definitely felt like I got my moneys worth.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly I thought it was a decent little game, for sure had a lot of kinks to work out though. Game didn't seem finished. Would have thought it was in early access but I don't believe it was when I was playing. Can't support a game when even the devs don't lol. This game should have been on life support but instead it was left for dead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I just don't get the bad reviews of this game, it is an awesome game. Sure there are some glitches and bugs here and there like when you play in the easiest difficulty your gladiator are not supposed to die but they do. Some balance issues like when you fight with a fully stuffed level 6 gladiator against a level 2 slave the slave still is able to win. But overall the game is good. The challenge is there and you have to manage every aspect of the success of every single one of your gladiator,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have been looking for a gladiator game for years, nothing even comes close to how well put together this game is, how well thought out it is, how much actual management there is invovled, how many quirky little things there are to learn, how many vast combinations of genre classes and abilities and weapon classes and different ways to play there are and how deep the game goes, 40 hours into the game i am discovering important major mechanics just now, i didn't even know you could learn…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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