It took mere seconds for me to get in the zone. Bloodshed is descended from old school shooters such as DOOM and Duke Nukem, games that I know well, games where the 2D sprites storm forwards like an army of monstrous cardboard soldiers.
Yet for all the classic sensibilities of this first-person shooter, beyond the perspective and the basic gunplay, Bloodshed has actually got a lot more in common with Vampire Survivors.
Bloodshed’s demo introduces the game quite nicely, I think. I immediately felt at home, blasting demons and cultists while strafing in and out of gun battles. That said, it didn’t take long before my overconfidence had me running away from a swarm of enemy demons because I was down to 30 health and I wanted a health pack, please.
And while there are health packs, there aren’t that many because this isn’t a boomer shooter, this is a first-person survivors-like.
The Bloodshed Demo
I played the first level several times before sitting down to write this and each time I got bit closer to completing the demo before I eventually did something silly and got splatted. Bloodshed isn’t an easy game, but I appreciated the challenge that it offered.
There are two playable characters in the demo, and there’s one map for you to roam. And roam you will if you have a similar experience to mine, as there were several moments where I was trying to stay away from trouble and catch my breath, looking for shrines to shoot and hopefully get a health pack. Most of the time the shrines drop XP which goes towards levelling you up; pick a skill from three, you know the drill.
The special abilities that you can unlock beyond the regular gun upgrades are the more interesting tricks that you can add to your repertoire. In fact, the guns are probably the most traditional part of the offering here, with standard pistols and shotguns, slowly buffed by incremental upgrades.
I’d like to see developer com8com1 Software have more fun with the weaponry, and to keep going with the magic abilities because there are great moments to be had. Moments where you’re dropping hexes to afflict your enemies. Moments when you’ve got lightning bolts raining down as spectral skulls scream past in search of fresh blood. Throw in a shotgun and some old school blasting and you’ve got one hell of promising first-person action-roguelite.
The Bloodshed demo is available on Steam until at least October 21.
