What If Getting Ganked Was Actually Fun?

MORTUMUS has been called an "indie gankbox" with "no safe zones whatsoever." We get why it looks that way from the outside. Full-loot PVP. Open world. Hardcore. Every game with those words has the same problem: a high-level player kills you, takes your stuff, and you alt-F4 in frustration.

That's not what we're building. MORTUMUS is built to fix this.

The Problem With PVP Zones

Most MMOs solve PVP by putting it in a box. There's a "PVP zone," a designated area where players can fight. Sounds fair. But here's what actually happens: the strongest players camp those zones. They know that's where the fights are, so that's where they go. For everyone else, the PVP zone becomes a place you avoid. The feature that's supposed to be exciting becomes a corner of the map most players never visit.

Zoned PVP doesn't spread danger. It concentrates it. And concentrated danger isn't exciting. It's a death sentence for anyone who isn't already at the top.

Why Open World Changes Everything

In MORTUMUS, PVP isn't in a zone. It's the world. Danger is everywhere, but because it's everywhere, it's not concentrated. You might run into trouble on a forest path, or at a mining node, or crossing a bridge. Or you might not. That uncertainty is what makes every journey feel alive.

Every player you see is a question. Are they friendly? Are they armed? Do they need something you have? Open-world PVP turns every encounter into a decision. Fight, flee, trade, or trust.

The Stranger Problem

There's a moment that most MMOs have designed away completely. You're walking through the wilderness. You see another player in the distance. You don't know their level. You don't know their intention. Do you approach? Do you hide? Do you wave and hope they wave back?

That tension, the not knowing, is the most human moment in gaming. Most developers remove it. Faction tags tell you who's an enemy. Nameplates show you their level. PVE servers remove the threat entirely. All of that kills the moment.

We want to keep that moment alive. Because the stories players remember aren't scripted quests. They're the time a stranger helped them fight off a monster and then disappeared. Or the time they trusted someone and got betrayed. Those moments only exist when the danger is real.

The Games That Got It Right

We're not building this in a vacuum. The games that shaped how we think about this are the ones that understood danger makes everything else matter.

In the early 2000s, there was a game most people have never heard of called Xenimus. For a brief window, it had this exact feeling. Open world, real danger, every player encounter charged with uncertainty. But power creep set in, high-level players made life miserable for everyone else, and the developer never found a solution. The feeling died. We never forgot it.

Diablo II nailed the combat feel. Dark, fast, visceral. Your build and your decisions defined you. RuneScape proved that a persistent world with sideways progression could keep players invested for years. World of Warcraft showed that real players in a shared world create stories no developer could script. And ARC Raiders captures something we care about deeply. That feeling where every other player is a question mark. Friend or threat. Help or danger. Trust as a decision you make in real time, with real consequences.

If you're an MMO player, the first comparison you'll probably reach for is Albion Online. Open world, full loot, player-driven. On paper it sounds similar. But Albion still gates its PVP behind colour-coded zones. Safe zones offer weak rewards. Dangerous zones are dominated by geared players who stat-check you before the fight even starts. That's still concentrated danger with extra steps. And its combat, isometric, cooldown-based, designed around clarity over feel, is a different philosophy entirely. We respect what Albion has built, especially its player economy. But the moment-to-moment experience we're chasing is something else.

MORTUMUS lives at the intersection of what all of these games got right, and the lessons from what they got wrong. The combat feel of an action RPG. A persistent world that doesn't reset. Sideways progression that respects your time. And the tension of knowing that every player you meet is making the same choice you are: whether to trust you.

Small Safe Zones, Big Consequences

We do have safe zones. Small ones. Squares within towns. Protection tiles where no one can hurt you. But they're small on purpose.

When the safe space is small, players stand close together. You see the same faces. You overhear conversations. Someone offers to trade. Someone warns you about a group of players hunting near the south gate. Alliances start here. Rivalries too.

Small safe zones don't just protect players. They bring them together. And in a game where trust matters, the places where people gather are where the real game begins.

What Happens When You Die

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Full loot. When you die, you can lose your equipment and experience. That sounds brutal, because it is. It has to be. Without real stakes, none of the rest matters. The stranger on the road isn't scary if dying is just a minor inconvenience.

But we're not interested in punishing players for the sake of it.

There are items in the game that can protect your experience and equipment when you die. How you get them, how you use them, and the choices around when to carry them. That's part of the gameplay. Preparation matters as much as skill.

And then there's the Ghost Revenge system. We're not ready to reveal how it works yet. But here's the design principle behind it: death should create gameplay, not end it. Getting killed, even by someone far more powerful than you, isn't the end of your story. It might be the beginning of theirs.

Killing someone in MORTUMUS might be the worst mistake you ever make.

Why We're Building This

We're two brothers from Australia, and we've been dreaming about this game for 15 years. Talking about it over beers. Arguing about mechanics. We tried building it a few times, kept hitting walls, and eventually found the right tools to actually get it moving.

AL runs manufacturing systems for the family business. Fin directs and produces science documentaries for the national broadcaster. MORTUMUS gets built in the hours between.

This is a passion project. No kickstarter. No investors. No pay-to-win. Just two dumbasses from Australia making the game they've always wanted to play. We don't mind taking cash out of our paychecks because this is fun. Building it together is the point, and that's what we want the game to be too. Not just something you play, but somewhere that brings people together.

We've been the low-level player getting ganked with no recourse. We've watched PVP zones turn into arenas for the top 1%. We've played MMOs where the world felt alive for the first month and then turned into a lobby for endgame dungeons. A smaller arena PVP game would be easier to ship, but it wouldn't scratch the itch. The persistent world is the point. A world that keeps going when you log off, where you run into the same faces and build rivalries and alliances that mean something.

We believe there are other players out there who want what we want. A world that stays dangerous, stays social, hides secrets worth finding, and treats every achievement like it was earned. A game where the best moments aren't designed by developers. They're created by players, in a world that gives them the freedom to surprise each other.

Maybe we're naive. But we've been thinking about this game for so long.

That's MORTUMUS.

— FIN