Bloodshore Review

Bloodshore was reviewed on a PS4

What happens when you cram 50 Gen-Z TikTokers, influencers and twitch streamers on a single island, arm them with automatic rifles and force them to play a real life game of Battle Royale to the death? You get an entertaining, yet a bit generic tale of love interests, conspiracy theories and betrayals.

What is Bloodshore?

Bloodshore is an FMV game about a group of people who are unleashed on a mysterious island as part of a televised Battle Royale. It’s another Hunger Games/Battle Royale/Condemned and it doesn’t do anything innovative or original to set itself apart from them.

In short, if you were expecting anything fresh or new from Bloodshore, then you’d be sorely disappointed. The premise is already beaten to death, just like the characters in the game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not enjoyable to watch.

10 Million Dollars AND I get to shoot people!? Where do I sign up?

You play as Nick, a struggling washed up previous child actor who’s still chasing his dream of reaching the stardom he once had. Naturally, he signs up for Kill/Stream. Locked, loaded and ready to commit cold-blooded homicide like the champion he is. Besides the fame that he might get from a reality show that’s watched by millions of people around the world, he also has his eyes set on that hefty 10 million dollar prize, or is he? It’s not long before you uncover his true sinister motivations behind joining the game.

If you’re a fan of Black Mirror, you’ll enjoy the themes presented in Bloodshore. A particular standout of the game are a few scenes of an interview with the show’s creator, Eugene Christoph. Both he and the interviewer, portrayed respectfully by Sule Rumi and Rupert Booth, offer the best performances in the game, and the most interesting scenes. Sadly, the same cannot be said about the rest of the cast. Not because of their lack of acting skills, but simply because there aren’t many powerful or engaging scenes throughout the game.

What about the “game” part of Bloodshore?

Even though I wasn’t expecting much, I was still disappointed with the lack of interactivity in Bloodshore. The only thing you pick up the controller for in Bloodshore is picking between two choices. Occasionally there’s more than two choices to take, but they usually don’t change much in the story beats. During a few scenes, the game even forced me to take a certain decision because the other one would result in a game over as Nick would die. This made me wonder why they bothered to make a game even, why not just make a normal movie instead.

Maybe cause people wouldn’t be as critical of the visual and sound effects if it were an FMV game. It’s easy to dismiss the cheap effects as the game having that “FMV spirit” instead of just admitting that they’re cheap effects. Bloodshore fails in that department, the guns sound fake, the explosions look ugly and an early scene with one of the contestant falling to his death looks laughably bad. But, then again, it’s an FMV game, so I was able to let it all slide because honestly, I was enjoying myself during Bloodshore, and that’s what matters the most.

Oh Em Gee, let’s kill each other

Besides Nick, cringy is an understatement when describing the game’s characters, particularly the younger ones. There’s a scene where a social media influencer films a dead body, from multiple angles, minutes after the person died, yup, this is one of THOSE games. As you all know, children these days only care about likes, thumbs ups and being famous on the internet.

The characters sound and act like an exaggerated caricature of what older generations think Gen Z and millennials act like. This is made worse by the fact that the hero, and the primary villain of the game, are different than those Gen Z kids, they’re older, more mature and act like normal human beings. Of course, Gen Z kids with their Instagrams and Snapchats die first; you can’t hashtag your way out of a gunfight. Maybe they were deliberately portrayed that way in the game, since the characters did join Kill/Stream to become famous. Or maybe it’s just bad writing? Who knows? 

Luckily, the action picks up straight away, and most of the cringy moments are gone as soon as they start dying one after the other. The game doesn’t lack in action scenes, which is why it’s so damn entertaining to watch. What made it even more intriguing is the overarching conspiracy theory subplot that tackles the nature of the show. Uncovering more about it with each subsequent playthrough made it enjoyable to replay the game and try out the other choices.

Overall,

Despite all of its shortcomings, Bloodshore is actually pretty fun for a run-of-the-mill FMV game. You got your fast-paced action scenes, more than 8 hours of footage to uncover, and a few plot turns and twists to discover making it easy to replay. I have to admit though that I wasn’t appreciative of the way younger generations were portrayed, and besides the main characters, most of them were massively underdeveloped.

It won’t blow your socks off, but if you’re looking for a new FMV game to sink your teeth into, then Bloodshore surely won’t disappoint. It isn’t very memorable, but it sure is a lot of fun to watch and play. Make sure to check out as well our review of Dark Nights With Poe and Munro, another FMV title that might interest you.

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Special thanks go to Heaven Media for providing us with a review code.

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You should play Bloodshore if you

• Enjoy FMV titles
• Love the Battle Royale genre
• Don’t mind the annoying characters
• Don’t mind the lack of interactivity
• Enjoy action packed scenes
• Don’t mind the cheap effects
• Love the high replayability

Bloodshore Score

7/10