Let’s Talk About: Bloodhunt (Sharkmob)

With the consistent popularity of games like Fortnite or Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, it’s not surprising that everyone and their mother wanted to try their hand at a battle royale.

The genre is a controversial one, as many gamers now sigh and roll their eyes at the mention of the free-for-all, but there are some unique cases where different developers bring different things to the table. Eternal Return: Black Survival functions like a MOBA with different characters having different abilities, Spellgrounds allows you to combine different elements to make unique attacks, and then Bloodhunt shows up with the perfect amount of teen angst and Nine Inch Nails merch.

Set in the expansive universe of Vampire The Masquerade, Bloodhunt allows you to run around the streets of Prague slaying other vampires, draining civilians, and fighting off a supernatural police force. With all the hallmarks of battle royales with a vampire aesthetic, can you be the last one standing?

Pros:

This game looks beautiful. This game is graphically the best of the genre, with the streets of Prague looking like a disturbing maze under the cover of darkness. If you have the opportunity, play with the graphics on the highest setting for a gorgeous visual experience.

The character choices are currently small, with only 6 possible classes across 3 clans. The Brujah have Vandals and Brutes, the Nosferatu have Saboteurs and Prowlers, and the Toreadors have Sirens and Muses. Each clan has a unique trait to themselves, and then a class has its own ability. You can customise each individual class's appearance (though the Nosferatu always look like they’re Ghouls from Fallout), and though it is limited, it’s enough to have some semblance of individuality.

The movement in this game is practically liquid. It flows wonderfully with sliding, jumping, running, and climbing all blending together extremely well. It rivals games like Assassin’s Creed for city scaling, it’s honestly worth playing based on the movement alone. It just goes to show that if you can do one thing well, make sure it’s incredible.

This game is free-to-play currently and has a battle pass for premium content, so you won’t need to sink money in if the game isn’t for you.

There are also small bits of lore you can unlock if you find the secrets on the battlefield. It’s not a lot at the moment, but it’s a nice touch to further set it apart from its competitors. It’s also interesting that you can drain blood from civilians to get health back and other benefits.

Cons:

The game suffers from the same problems other battle royales do in that it is quite luck-dependent to an extent. You aren’t guaranteed to find good guns, armour, or health packs so it can be frustrating, but that’s just the same as any game in the genre.

There have been complaints about optimisation, and playing on PC means you need pretty decent specs to run it on the lowest setting, but people are still reporting frame drops even with that caveat.

I once got killed before I managed to even load in properly, which needs serious fixing. It only happened once, but that’s one time too many.

The game is in early access still, so there are some other small bugs in the system that can be ironed out.

To Summarise:

If you like Vampire the Masquerade and battle royales, this game is definitely for you. It’s got enough of a unique persona to stand out against others in the genre, while still keeping what is standard for games.

Going forward, I hope they introduce new maps. I’d love to run around the streets of London or Venice as a vampire.

Also, if you play this game, jump in the water. See what happens.

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