Blood is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by Monolith Productions using the Build engine and published by GT Interactive. The shareware version was released for MS-DOS on March 7, 1997, while the full version was later released on May 21 in North America and June 20 in Europe.

The game follows the story of Caleb, an undead early 20th century gunslinger seeking revenge against the demon Tchernobog. It features a number of occult and horror themes. Blood includes large amounts of graphic violence, a large arsenal of weapons ranging from the standard to the bizarre, and numerous enemies and bosses.

Blood received largely positive reviews from critics upon release, with many praising its creative level design, humor (particularly its use of pop-culture references), atmosphere, and gameplay, though some criticism was aimed at the game's difficulty. It has since garnered a cult following and is now considered one of the best games on the Build engine.

The Blood franchise was continued with two official expansion packs titled Plasma Pak (developed by Monolith) and Cryptic Passage (developed by Sunstorm Interactive). A sequel titled Blood II: The Chosen was released in 1998. Blood also served as the principal inspiration for the manhwa series Priest. The game was released on GOG.com along with its two expansion packs on April 22, 2010, utilizing the DOSBox emulator to run on modern systems, and on Steam on July 14, 2014. A remaster of the game made to run better on modern systems entitled Blood: Fresh Supply was released on May 9, 2019, by Nightdive Studios and Atari.

Gameplay

In single-player mode, the player takes the role of Caleb in his quest for revenge against his former master by navigating levels in episodes, looking for an exit, until the boss level.

Bloods gameplay is similar to other classic FPS games like Doom: the player must activate switches or seek keys to go through the levels; some larger maps contain up to six different keys. Features include teleporters, traps such as crushing blocks, 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. Weapons include a flare gun, voodoo doll, and an aerosol canister that can be used as a flamethrower. It also features a power-up known as "Guns Akimbo", which allows the player to dual wield certain weapons temporarily. Blood also has "super secret" areas which contain rewards for discovering them.

Enemies include human members of the Cabal and creatures fighting for the demon Tchernobog. Enemies can use objects in the environment for cover.

The multiplayer modes consist of deathmatch, known in Blood as "Bloodbath", and cooperative play. Bloodbath matches can be played on specifically designed multiplayer maps or on the levels of the various episodes; the "frag limit" or "time limit" options are available to end matches, as well as the possibility to control respawn mode for weapons and power-ups. A feature of Bloodbath is "The Voice", an audio comment heard upon each frag, that punctuates the death of an opponent often in gory and irreverent terms. "The Voice" is that of Jace Hall, who was CEO of Monolith Productions at the time. Cooperative gameplay follows the lines of the single player campaign, allowing several players to work together in the levels of the different episodes.

Plot

Blood takes place in an unspecified time period. The various levels contain elements from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, in addition to futuristic and retro-futuristic technologies and a weird West theme. Many elements are anachronistic, including weapons and pop-culture references. The sequel, Blood II: The Chosen, retroactively dates the game to the year 1928.

The backstory is not delineated in the game itself, only on the Monolith website and a readme text document. The player takes on the role of Caleb, once the supreme commander of a cult called "The Cabal", followers of the forgotten demon Tchernobog. Known as a merciless gunfighter in the late 19th century American West, Caleb joined the Cabal in 1871 after meeting Ophelia Price, a woman whose husband and son may have been murdered by the members of the Cabal; it is implied that she later became Caleb's lover. Together they rose to the highest circle of the dark cult, "The Chosen", until all four members of The Chosen were betrayed and killed by Tchernobog for unspecified failures. Several years later, Caleb rises from his grave, seeking answers and vengeance. Following the success of Duke Nukem 3D, development progress was made public starting in June 1996 with weekly updates on their website. It was originally scheduled for release in early 1997. Q Studios was acquired by Monolith in November 1996. On January 22, 1997, all rights had been sold to Monolith so that 3D Realms could focus efforts on Shadow Warrior, another Build engine game slated for release the same year. Ports for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were planned but never completed

Blood was one of two games (the other being Shadow Warrior) that took advantage of the Build engine's support for voxel objects in the game world. Blood used this for weapon and ammo pickups, power-ups, and occasionally decorations, such as the tombstones in the first level of episode one, "Cradle to Grave". The Build engine was enhanced for Blood to allow new lighting effects, real-time shadows, and simulated "rooms above rooms".

A central feature of Blood is an abundant (and often exaggerated) graphic violence, from which the game derives its name. Enemies can be blown to pieces, and the pieces often rain down on the player. Zombies' heads can be shot off and then kicked around like footballs, spewing fountains of blood. Enemies scream if set on fire or are otherwise injured, making sound an integral part of the violent atmosphere of Blood. The levels themselves are designed with the same spirit, as corpses, torture victims, and several grotesque situations are witnessed in the game. Collectively, these features caused some public concern about Blood, leading to a censored re-release of the game.

Intellectual property ownership

3D Realms sold Monolith the intellectual property (IP) so 3D Realms could make Shadow Warrior. Monolith sold the publishing rights, but not the IP for Blood and its sequel to GT Interactive. GT Interactive was later acquired by Infogrames, which has since been renamed to Atari. Monolith itself was acquired by Warner Bros., which owns the Blood trademark and intellectual property. Atari re-released Blood and Blood 2 on Steam and GOG, but unlike other Build engine games (Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior), the source code for Blood has not officially been released, however multiple incomplete versions of it exist online.

Fresh Supply and Refreshed Supply

Nightdive Studios was commissioned by Atari to create an enhanced version of Blood. It was released exclusively for Windows on May 9, 2019, under the title Blood: Fresh Supply.

A newer version of Fresh Supply, also developed by Nightdive Studios, got more quality of life features as well the integration of the mod scenario Marrow, with the scenario Death Wish in a later update. It was released for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on December 4, 2025. A Nintendo Switch 2 port is also planned for an early 2026 release.

Reception

Blood received "generally favorable" reviews from professional critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic based on seven reviews. Critics especially praised the intricate and creative level designs, humorous wisecracks and pop culture references, over-the-top gore, variety of settings, and inventive, unconventional weaponry. GamePro followed up its own criticisms by concluding: "Bloods flaws are easily swept aside when your guns start blasting and the bodies start falling".

GamingOnLinux reviewer Hamish Paul Wilson decided in a 2015 retrospective that Blood was easily the best of the three major Build engine games, stating that Blood was "one of the most underrated shooters of the whole decade. Blood arguably built more on the legacy of Duke Nukem 3D than Shadow Warrior did, taking its gameplay to sophisticated new heights and offering its referential overtones with an even greater degree of refinement". Player Attack described Blood in a 2011 article as "the best of the Build engine games after Duke Nukem 3D, with its combination of scary atmosphere, great level design and challenging gameplay putting it above the rest".

More than 350,000 copies of Blood have been downloaded. This number reached one million in its first six months of release. By 1998, the game sold 120,000 copies worldwide.

Legacy

Blood has received numerous fan homages and remakes, including Transfusion, ZBlood, BloodCM, and The Flesh Game, as well as community produced source ports such as BloodGDX, NBlood and Raze, and mods for other games such as the Bloom mod made for GZDoom. The game has also inspired several later boomer shooters such as Eternal Damnation, Viscerafest, Dread Templar, Coven, Nightmare Reaper, Project Warlock, Dusk, and most notably Cultic. It was also influential on the roguelike game Infra Arcana.

The manhwa series Priest created by Hyung Min-woo was inspired by Blood. An interview with Hyung in Priest, Vol. 3: Requiem for the Damned states that the comic was influenced by the game, which featured a similar horror-Western aesthetic and undead protagonist. The manhwa was adapted into the 2011 American horror film of the same name.

The 2014 horror film FPS: First Person Shooter features Stephan Weyte, the actor who played Caleb, as the voice of the protagonist.

References

  • Official Blood Monolith page (limited content)
  • Blood article on the Blood Wiki