Making games akin to Vampire Survivors is a bit of a hot ticket. The budget title is a runaway hit and lots of people are trying to pivot it into different avenues, including Bloodshed, which is basically meant to be a fusion between Vampire Survivors and an old-school FPS. While considerably more expensive (and infinitely lighter on content,) Bloodshed is also a budget game. For what’s included, I had a pretty great time, as the game is fast, frenetic, and bloody in equal measure. I want it to have more staying power, but the real shame is that, given more resources, this could have been the golden standard of first-person Survivors-likes if the devs had wished it.
Obviously, instead of having players survive against waves in a top-down 2D game, Bloodshed is played in first person. You pick a character, with each having different starting loadouts and abilities, and then attempt to survive for a certain amount of time. That’s mostly it for the game’s six main missions (yes, there are really only six main maps.) If you do, you’re victorious and unlock the next mission. The game is broken into two episodes (although you might assume there are three since there are three slots in the campaign menu.) It makes me think there was initially going to be three (since most classic boomer shooters have three episodes,) but the devs pivoted, although this is merely conjecture.
Each episode has four main levels – three survival maps and a boss map. There are also a few optional missions unlocked by killing spiders found in the six main levels and collecting their tokens. If you do all of these just once (and know to use the blue blips on the map to find the spiders during your first runs of each mission,) you can probably see every single level Bloodshed has to offer in just three hours. Since the game is fairly easy by default, this isn’t a tall order. There are two characters that need to be unlocked through special means and getting them will take you longer, but I had seen almost everything in just six hours.
But those six hours were a pretty great time, I have to say. Unlike, say, Vampire Hunters, Bloodshed is a good game in and of itself. The art direction is perfectly evocative of many of the genre’s classics, the enemy sprites are memorable and look great, and the shooting and gore feel just as they should. It’s not too different from what you’d get if Serious Sam or Painkiller had survival modes. You’re dropped into a level and you spend however long it lasts just blasting hundreds of enemies to pieces. There are, unfortunately, no endless modes that ramp things up indefinitely, which is a shame.
Much like Vampire Survivors, enemies drop experience that you’ll use to frequently level up. Doing so grants you a choice between three upgrades, which are either new pickups or improvements for what you already have. Unlike its inspiration, however, you swap between guns like in any other first-person shooter and sadly can’t have multiple equipped simultaneously. This would have been extremely cool, but alas. Guns get much better as they’re upgraded, though, and some of them are seriously fun to use, with the sawed-off shotgun and AK-47 being my favourites.
The weapon variety in Bloodshed is pretty solid across the board, though. Dual pistols, a rocket launcher, a gun that shoots electric blasts, and multiple melee weapons are available. The melee weapons don’t all feel that great to use, but it’s highly satisfying to power them up and just hack everything around you to pieces. My favourite melee weapon is a hook that one of the characters swings around, which actually has a decent amount of range alongside being one of the few melee weapons with some actual impact. The character can also use the hook to grapple to higher areas, but going melee only is risky considering that some of the enemies explode when you kill them.
All of the guns have infinite ammo, so it’s a blast to just jump around nailing headshots while keeping on the move. Bloodshed throws a truly ridiculous amount of enemies your way with frequency, making for a pretty exhilarating experience much of the time. Enemies are varied too, with a bunch of different types to keep you on your toes despite the short length. The bosses aren’t too impressive or memorable (with the final boss being fairly underwhelming as well,) but they’re serviceable considering. As far as first-person Survivors-likes go, this one really checks all the boxes for me.
There are permanent upgrades that can be purchased with money found in the levels, but these are far from necessary. What’s odd is that you can buy temporary power-ups for each run that are almost laughably overpriced. For instance, you can buy extra lives for 10,000 gems, but that makes it the most expensive thing in the game and far pricier than it has any right being. I never bought any of these consumables and don’t imagine that many will, so they’re an odd inclusion. They’re so easily ignored that I don’t really take too much of an issue with them, though.
The only true complaint I have about the game is that I wish it was actually an attempt at offering the amount of content Vampire Survivors has. This game’s mechanics with the breadth of that game would have made it one of the best in its class, instead it’s just a very fun short experience. Considering that the game is already going on sale for under $6 USD, it’s well worth buying and the dev has done a great job making a fun arena shooter. I wish it lasted longer, but at least beating the game unlocks a custom mode that lets you spend up to 30 minutes in each main map, as well as tweak enemy damage. Whether that’ll be enough for players is another matter, of course.
Bloodshed: Bloodshed successfully marries its 90s FPS influences with Survivors-like mechanics to make for a very enjoyable blood-soaked romp that doesn't last as long as many would like. – Andrew Farrell
Here is our previous review:
