Glory to the Heroes Is Rough, But There Might Be Something Here
I have been playing a ton of War Dogs lately, so when I came across Glory to the Heroes, I was immediately interested. The Steam page caught my attention first. It has some pretty cool graphics and the game is clearly going for a much more ambitious military simulation experience than I expected. There is an inventory system, a 3D map, different scales of combat, and an emphasis on realism. At first glance, it almost seems like the developers are trying to build a little bit of everything into one game.
The problem is that Glory to the Heroes is still very clearly a work in progress. This is a pre-alpha build, and my first experience with it was pretty rocky. Getting into the actual game took a surprisingly long time, and when I finally loaded in, I initially appeared to be the only person on the server. That made it difficult to get a real sense of how the game was supposed to play, but I decided to wander around and see what I could find.
Visually, there is actually a lot to like here. The environments have an impressive amount of foliage, and the rivers and surrounding terrain look pretty good. The maps are based on real locations, and there is a very deliberate attempt to make the world feel like an actual place rather than a collection of multiplayer arenas. The downside is that the maps are huge, and when you are apparently the only person playing, getting anywhere becomes a bit of a trek.
Eventually, things started getting strange.
While moving through the map, I suddenly came across another player standing around with a drone. I had joined the server thinking there were no players at all, so finding someone out there was completely unexpected. Shortly afterward, I started hearing gunfire and explosions in the distance. Suddenly there were actually people playing, and I had to start paying attention to what was happening around me.
That is where Glory to the Heroes started becoming more interesting.
The game has several different ways to hold your weapon, controlled through the mouse wheel. You can have it lowered, in a neutral position, or raised, and each seems to have some effect on how quickly you can aim or move. I was still trying to figure out exactly what each position was supposed to accomplish, but it is another indication of how much detail the developers are trying to work into the game.
There are also some nice little environmental details scattered throughout the maps. I came across greenhouses, cell phone towers, destroyed buildings and other pieces of infrastructure that helped sell the idea that this was supposed to be a real place. You cannot enter the buildings at this point, which limits how much you can actually interact with the environment, but the overall design is promising.
The further I moved toward the populated areas, the more obvious the game’s intended atmosphere became. There were explosions in the distance, smoke rising over the landscape and radio chatter coming through that I couldn’t understand because it was in Ukrainian or Russian. The game also opens with some very serious political messaging surrounding the conflicts it is depicting, so there is no question that Glory to the Heroes is trying to present itself as more than just another military shooter.
Eventually, I ran into an enemy.
He was wearing red, which appears to indicate the opposing side, although I was still trying to understand the various armband colors used by friendly players. I got into a close-range fight with him and eventually managed to take him down, but the actual gunplay left a little to be desired. It felt like I had to put a lot of rounds into him at extremely close range before he went down.
That might not have been entirely the game’s fault, though. I was playing with fairly high ping, and the developers themselves clearly have a lot of work ahead of them. It is difficult to judge the final gunplay from a pre-alpha build, especially when network issues could have been affecting the experience.
The aftermath of the fight was a little more interesting. I was able to use an army bandage to treat myself, loot the enemy and find medical supplies on his body. The game is clearly taking some inspiration from the extraction shooter side of the military shooter genre, particularly when it comes to inventory, medical systems and the importance of sound.
And sound does seem to be a major part of the experience.
Glory to the Heroes feels like it wants you to move carefully, listen for other players and actually think about where you are going rather than sprinting around the map looking for constant fights. That is the kind of military shooter I generally enjoy. I would much rather have three people moving together along a wall and cautiously working their way through an area than a game where everyone is constantly running around shooting at each other.
The problem is that the game isn’t quite there yet.
There are plenty of moments where the roughness of the build becomes impossible to ignore. Identifying friendly players was confusing because I encountered yellow, green and blue armbands while enemies appeared to be red. I still wasn’t entirely sure what all of those colors represented. I tried talking to some friendly players, but communication wasn’t exactly smooth, and I wasn’t even sure whether my audio settings were configured correctly.
There were also moments where the visual complexity of the environment actually worked against the gameplay. When I encountered another enemy, I didn’t recognize him as hostile until I was already extremely close. With all of the destroyed buildings, foliage and debris surrounding me, it was difficult to pick out exactly what I was looking at. I ended up getting killed before I could react.
That death actually gave me a good look at another part of the game. The world has a really interesting visual identity when you are moving through the destroyed areas. Everything is gray and damaged, with burned-out structures and what look like hot ashes scattered throughout the environment. There is something genuinely creepy about wandering through these places, especially when you don’t know where another player might be.
That atmosphere is probably the strongest thing Glory to the Heroes has going for it right now.
It is not polished. It is not particularly smooth. The gunplay needs work, the player population is obviously a question mark, and there are plenty of systems that still feel unfinished. But underneath all of that, I can see what the developers are trying to build.
There is something appealing about the idea of taking these enormous, realistic environments and slowly working through them with a small group of players. The scale of the maps, the sound design, the destruction and the emphasis on positioning all point toward a slower military simulation where simply moving from one area to another can feel dangerous.
Unfortunately, my session ended before I could really see that experience come together. After dying, I attempted to find the player who had killed me and make my way back toward the fight. I eventually ran into more players, picked up an AK and watched one of the strangest player interactions I’ve seen in one of these games, before ultimately getting booted from the match.
And that pretty much summed up my experience with Glory to the Heroes.
It is extremely janky right now. There is really no getting around that. This is very clearly a pre-alpha build, and I would not look at what I played and consider it representative of what the finished game will necessarily be. At the same time, I don’t think the roughness completely overshadows what is interesting about it.
The atmosphere is genuinely cool. I like the environments, I like the darker and more difficult-to-read visual style, and I like the direction the developers seem to be taking with the gameplay. The menus and underlying systems also feel surprisingly intricate for something this early. There is clearly a lot being planned here.
Whether all of that eventually comes together is another question.
For now, Glory to the Heroes is one of those games that I would keep an eye on rather than immediately recommend jumping into. It needs work, especially when it comes to the gunplay and overall polish, and the experience is going to depend heavily on whether the game can actually maintain a player base once it is available more broadly.
But there is enough here that I don’t want to write it off.
For a pre-alpha build, I can see the direction. If the developers can turn the systems they have started building into a cohesive military shooter, there could be something worth coming back to here. Right now, Glory to the Heroes is rough, occasionally confusing and clearly unfinished, but underneath all of that is a game with a pretty interesting idea of what it wants to be.
And sometimes that’s enough reason to keep an eye on it.