Bloodshore – Spotlight
The Bunker and Late Shift, two of Wales Interactive’s first forays into the FMV genre, were a promising start. The latter was a competent choice-your-own-adventure heist flick, but the publisher’s latest outing feels like a cynical return to the FMV genre’s chintzy heyday.
As a lame throwback to earlier attempts at mixed-media gaming, Bloodshore most closely resembles one of the many straight-to-video knockoffs of The Running Man or Battle Royale – though it will also be compared to Squid Game (despite actually being very different).
An underhanded group known as The Corporation has created a hugely popular reality TV show called Kill/Stream, in which 50 contestants compete for a cash prize of £100 million in a dystopian near-future. What is the objective? Embark on a solitary island in small groups and wipe out the competition until only one team remains.
While previous games allowed players to “tap out” and exit the contest with their lives intact, this time it’s a true fight to the death with no escapes in this latest version of the popular game. An over-the-hill actor named Nick (played by James Palmer) reluctantly works with his colourful group of hopefuls on one of the six teams.
The game’s production quality is lacking in comparison to previous Wales games, and that will be the first thing you notice about it. Cinematography is acceptable, but the game as a whole is visually unpolished due to its over-reliance on amateurish visual effects (VFX). It’s hard to believe that even the quality of the video footage is so low, as demonstrated by the low-res menu video (which, worse still, is set to an awkwardly looped music track).
Although the acting isn’t much better, given that each character is a generic stereotype you won’t remember for long, the actors can’t really be blamed for failing to do much with the material – or the slapstick dialogue, which is frequently ridiculous. This could be interpreted as a deliberate tribute to the cornball FMV games of the past, but that feels like an easy way out given the potential for a truly enjoyable interactive live-action battle royale game.
Bloodshore could get away with shoddy acting and a ridiculous script if it were just a good time, but it just drips laziness from every pore. Because we only see a handful of characters over the course of the storey, it never feels as though there are 50 in total. And despite promises of “extreme violence,” there are only a handful of big-bang death scenes.
This film’s “substance” is largely a commentary on the dangers of fame and reality television, as well as on income inequality, human barbarism, and our insatiable desire to watch human suffering. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing new or exciting about it. Even though the plot revolves around livestreaming and makes a passing reference to Jeffrey Epstein, it’s easy to believe the game has been sitting on a shelf for years without these elements.
Even though there are only two options to choose from throughout the game, Bloodshore really falls short as an interactive experience. It’s also possible that you’ll be given a “rewind” option if you make a decision that ultimately ends in your death.
In spite of the game’s claim to have eight hours of FMV, it appears that at least a significant portion of that is redundant, with alternate inserts clearly inserted. Moreover, the storey isn’t compelling enough that most people will want to play through the entire eight-hour playthrough; I certainly didn’t.
Cutaways to TV presenters covering the show, a pair of homeless men watching it, and live-streamers broadcasting it further bloat the running time of the film. As a result, the storey is already bloated with unnecessary melodramatics, such as the romantic subplot between Nick and Tish. All of this just adds to an already thin storey.
You can skip previously seen scenes in this game, as you can in most other Wales games, but the functionality is disappointingly limited. Forcing me to repeatedly press the Tab key to avoid repeat scenes, the game made me sit through a shockingly large amount of the same material, with only minor differences. Replaying for different endings becomes a major chore because the video data isn’t chunked into small enough pieces to allow granular skips past repeat material.
In an effort to make the experience feel more like a game, there is a tracker menu that monitors your team morale, the audience’s opinion, romance, strength, and insight, but I found it to be of little interest in any of my playthroughs. In previous Wales games, a more detailed relationship metre between characters was one of the better stat-tracking features.
Despite the fact that Wales’ recent FMV efforts haven’t been stellar, this is a major setback for the country. Late Shift’s mood and aesthetic are so much more appealing than anything they’ve released since, and it’s possible that the game’s production was strained by the pandemic, which would explain the lack of resources and few cast members together in any single scene, like their recent game Night Book.
In order to unlock all 294 scenes, you’ll need to put in quite a bit of time, which may not be appealing given the weak storey, the lack of depth in the characters, and the lack of interesting options available. Even with some storey paths offering a little more diversion than initially expected, I suspect four or five playthroughs will be sufficient for many; it certainly was for me.
Disappointing as it is unremarkable, Bloodshore is a shambles of ideas and tones that will quickly fade from memory.
