Blood (video game)

Lore & Background

Blood is a first-person shooter set in an unspecified time period, with levels containing elements from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, as well as futuristic and retro-futuristic technologies and a weird West theme. The player takes the role of Caleb, once the supreme commander of a cult called 'The Cabal,' followers of the demon Tchernobog. Caleb joined the Cabal in 1871 after meeting Ophelia Price, and together they rose to 'The Chosen,' until all four members were betrayed and killed by Tchernobog. Caleb rises from his grave seeking answers and vengeance.

The game's single-player mode involves navigating levels in episodes, looking for an exit until the boss level. Gameplay is similar to classic FPS games like Doom, requiring switches and keys, and features teleporters, traps, explosive barrels, lava pits, jumping puzzles, and combination lock doors. Blood is one of the earliest FPS games to feature alternate or secondary attack modes for its weapons, which include a flare gun, voodoo doll, and an aerosol canister flamethrower. Enemies include human members of the Cabal and creatures fighting for Tchernobog, as well as 'nuisance enemies' like bats and rats.

Multiplayer modes include deathmatch (called 'Bloodbath') and cooperative play, supporting up to eight players via IPX network, or two players via modem or serial cable. Bloodbath matches feature 'The Voice,' an audio comment upon each frag, voiced by Jace Hall, then CEO of Monolith Productions. The game's backstory is not delineated in the game itself, only on the Monolith website and a readme text document.

Reader's Guide

Blood was released as shareware on March 7, 1997, with the full version following on May 21 in North America and June 20 in Europe. It received largely positive reviews from critics, with praise for its creative level design, humor (particularly pop-culture references), atmosphere, and gameplay, though some criticism was aimed at its difficulty. It has since garnered a cult following and is considered one of the best games on the Build engine. The Blood franchise continued with two official expansion packs: Plasma Pak (by Monolith) and Cryptic Passage (by Sunstorm Interactive), and a sequel, Blood II: The Chosen, released in 1998. Blood also served as the principal inspiration for the manhwa series Priest. The game was released on GOG.com on April 22, 2010, using DOSBox, and on Steam on July 14, 2014. A remaster titled Blood: Fresh Supply was released on May 9, 2019, by Nightdive Studios and Atari, with a console port called Blood: Refreshed Supply on December 4, 2025. The game's extremely violent content prompted a censored version with toned-down violence. A special edition collection titled One Unit Whole Blood was released on July 15, 1998, including the fully patched versions of Blood, Cryptic Passage, and the Plasma Pak, as well as a strategy guide.

The Vengeance of Caleb

Blood casts the player as Caleb, a resurrected gunslinger from the late nineteenth-century American West who was once the supreme commander of a dark occult cult known as The Cabal. His story begins in 1871, when he crossed paths with Ophelia Price, a woman whose family may have been murdered by Cabal members. The two eventually became lovers and climbed to the cult's innermost circle, The Chosen. But Tchernobog, the forgotten demon they served, betrayed and killed all four members of that circle for unspecified failures. Years later, Caleb rises from his grave, driven by a need for answers and retribution. The game's setting deliberately mashes together anachronistic elements—1920s through 1940s aesthetics, retro-futuristic technology, and a "weird West" sensibility—creating a surreal, horror-soaked world. The sequel, Blood II: The Chosen, later pinned the timeline to 1928. Caleb's quest takes him from a hijacked train called the Phantom Express through a Great Temple where he discovers Ophelia crucified, and onward to an Arctic lumber mill and a deep mine where he confronts the mother spider Shial.

Arsenal, Traps, and Tactical Depth

While Blood shares structural DNA with contemporaries like Doom—navigating episode-based levels, hunting for keys and switches, and culminating in a boss encounter—it pushes the formula further in several notable ways. Larger maps can demand up to six distinct keys, and corridors are littered with teleporters, crushing blocks, explosive barrels, lava pits, jumping puzzles, and combination-lock doors. One of the game's most celebrated innovations is its secondary attack modes: the flare gun, a voodoo doll, and an aerosol canister that doubles as a flamethrower all offer alternate firing options, a feature rare among early first-person shooters. The "Guns Akimbo" power-up temporarily lets the player dual-wield certain weapons, while hidden "super secret" areas reward explorers with extra loot. On the enemy side, Cabal humanoids and Tchernobog's creatures will take cover behind environmental objects, and swarms of so-called nuisance enemies—bats, rats, eels, possessed hands—individually pose little threat but become genuinely dangerous in numbers.

Critical Acclaim and Lasting Influence

Upon its 1997 release, Blood was met with largely favorable critical reception. Reviewers singled out its inventive level design, its sharp humor laced with pop-culture references, its moody occult atmosphere, and the sheer variety of its combat. The main point of criticism centered on the game's punishing difficulty curve. Over the decades since, that difficulty has paradoxically contributed to a devoted cult following, and Blood is now widely regarded as one of the finest titles built on the Build engine. Its cultural footprint extends well beyond the gaming world: the South Korean manhwa series Priest drew its principal inspiration directly from the game. The franchise grew through two official expansions—Plasma Pak by Monolith Productions and Cryptic Passage by Sunstorm Interactive—and a 1998 sequel, Blood II: The Chosen. Modern accessibility has been a steady thread: a GOG.com release in 2010 used DOSBox to run the original on current hardware, Steam picked it up in 2014, Nightdive Studios and Atari shipped the Blood: Fresh Supply remaster in 2019, and a console port called Blood: Refreshed Supply arrived in December 2025.

Bloodbath, The Voice, and Multiplayer Heritage

Blood's multiplayer component offered two primary modes: a deathmatch variant branded "Bloodbath" and a cooperative campaign that mirrors the single-player episode structure. Because internet gaming was still in its infancy in 1997, players connected via modem or serial cable for two-player matches, or through an IPX network for sessions of up to eight. Online play was also available through the Total Entertainment Network and DWANGO. Bloodbath matches could be run on purpose-built arenas or on the campaign's own levels, with configurable frag limits, time limits, and respawn rules for weapons and power-ups. The mode's most memorable flourish is "The Voice," a gory, irreverent audio quip delivered after every kill, performed by Jace Hall, who was Monolith Productions' CEO at the time. Today, the IPX multiplayer experience remains accessible to modern players by combining DOSBox's IPX support with VPN tools like Hamachi, keeping the spirit of late-1990s LAN-style deathmatch alive more than two decades after the original release.

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