Why wasn't "Blood" more popular?

It just seems odd that so many 90s shooters have been rebooted (Duke 3D, Wolf 3D, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad, Doom) and yet Blood has been all but forgotten. Why is this? Was it too gory for the time? Was it that Monolith Productions wasn't a household name? Was it because, at the time of its release in 1997, the world had just been introduced to the first wave of polygonal FPSs?

Probably the latter, yes. Secondly, I think it hasn't seen a reboot because those owning the rights have decided to sit on it, or so I heard from an undocumented source.

Because Atari said fuck you that's why.

Wanna know why we will never see the Blood Source Code?
Because Monolith was too stupid with thier greed.

Outside of this forum I never hear Blood mentioned unless its spraying from enemies.

Wolf was the first FPS.
Duke was the first FPS with attitude. ... wait wait. Scantily clad women. That's why.
Shadow Warrior is Duke's FPS cousin.
Rise of the Triad is Wolfs FPS cousin.

No one talked about Shadow Warrior for a decade until it was released on Steam for free. You can reboot Blood, but would it be worth it to fit in with a bunch of $15 FPS that chances are would be better with a wider known legacy?

You tell me what makes Blood so special. I'm really unfamiliar with it. Shadow Warrior has swords. Duke has attitude and 90s. Wolf and Rise have Nazis.

Perhaps Atari or the rights holders just want too much for the name. Perhaps someone else owns a greater copyright to the name Blood. Like how Hulk Hogan needs to pay Marvel for the "Hulk" name and the Elder Scrolls came down on some indie developer for using the name Scrolls.

Then again it could just be Atari. Its a lot easier to keep pumping out compilations on hardware for $20.

Blood was special due to its atmosphere. Duke had an attitude but so did Blood. It was pure dark comedy with plenty of references to classic horror movies and the like.

The general atmosphere was creepy, dark and sinister with a range of satanic enemies. The Monks were a fun enemy to kill (flare gun make them run around in flames screaming) and zombies sometimes had their heads pop off where you can kick it around. Caleb, the protagonist was a psychopath who always loved commenting on gore. Another great factor about the game was some of the level designs, from moving trains, carnivals, slaughterhouses to an organic body.

Blood 2 wasn't received as well but I loved it and played it more than the first. This installment lost some of its humor and charm to be even more darker. The motel level was legitimately creepy imo.

I think it would be more difficult to reboot Blood as you would have to release a dark and gory game that can become both repetitive and controversial within our modern times. Hell it might be a more subtle Brutal Doom with a blood theme.

dio said:

You tell me what makes Blood so special. I'm really unfamiliar with it. Shadow Warrior has swords. Duke has attitude and 90s. Wolf and Rise have Nazis.

Blood was a very arcane and gothic kind of affair during a time in which virtually every shooter had a strong sci-fi lean. There's a morbidity to Blood that is largely unmatched, and the special attention to sound design made killing baddies a little too much fun. It had this really dark, twisted atmosphere that was in total contrast to what was popular at the time.

Because they decided to forget about the series and to not release any other "Blood" titles .

Blood 2 was god awful, the first game was vastly superior to it. However they shouldn't feel discouraged to make a third game just because the second game was a flop, and that game was release quite a while back.

Blood 2 wasn't the worst game of all time. It's decent enough that it has its own cult following, albeit smaller and separate to the Blood 1 following.

Blood 2 may seem awful, but you know what?
You just have to play a certain mod with it.
Moddb is your friend btw.

Where can i get the original blood nowadays? the old doom port just doesn't seem the same

For the same reason that Blake Stone wasn't more popular. By the time that Blood was released, a certain game with a far superior engine (i.e. Quake in this case) had already made its mark on the FPS scene (further dominating said scene by giving everyone easily accessible online play in the process), with even greater engines on the horizon (idTech 2, Unreal).

By comparison, Blood was using BUILD, a relatively graceless contraption which was already showing its age (not least by managing to resemble idTech 1 on the surface, several years after Doom's release) but also a buggy and hacky option (some might even say broken) to the point where it allowed basic scenery (such as doors!) to kill players without any actual intention on the map author's part.

If it was 1997 again and I had the choice of Blood or Quake, I think I'd definitely play it safe and go with Quake. Again. Blood is a fine game in theory but segments of it can be needlessly frustrating, and let's just be honest about how unbelievably shitty the BUILD engine could be at times compared to its peers. Even the ageing idTech 1 at this point came with its fair share of bugs and glitches, but at least a fucking polyobject door in Hexen wouldn't immediately kill you for having the sheer audacity of trying to open it.

As for the lack of a reboot, it's also down to a legal quagmire of greed and stupidity, not to mention Blood 2 being less-than-successful (and nobody wants to take any sort of risk these days, lord no -- not when you can just fall back on milking the market with Clone of Duty every few years). The same legalese soup of greed and stupidity (along with laziness), incidentally, is that which has also prevented any source code release so far.

Protester said:

Where can i get the original blood nowadays? the old doom port just doesn't seem the same

Over here : http://store.steampowered.com/app/299030/

DMGUYDZ64 said:

Over here : http://store.steampowered.com/app/299030/

Foolish DMGUY http://www.gog.com/game/one_unit_whole_blood

Clonehunter knows best.

Blood is well know if you include the retro gamers and those who played it back then, but it certainly is not as huge or widespread as DooM or Quake. Even those are no longer the huge toppers they once might have been. Maybe Doom 4 could revive that legacy though.

When it comes to the bugs in the Build engine games i would say that they are less of a problem when playing the games like a common player. So... Without speeding trough it, humping walls to attempt to shave off some time, or doing random weird things.

I guess they kind of killed their own game its prolonged lifespan with a copyright fight or problem.

Clonehunter said:

Foolish DMGUY http://www.gog.com/game/one_unit_whole_blood

I think I'm missing something, because the Steam version is cheaper. What is better about the GOG one?

The Steam version isn't cheaper, it's just on sale right now because it's in the Halloween sale. They're both exactly the same because Atari said fuck you to everyone who wanted to make a source port.

SavageCorona said:

Because Atari said fuck you that's why.

Pretty much. Interceptor said they wanted to do it, Jace Hall said he wanted to do it, Devolver said they wanted to do it too, but Atari jacked the price too high and aren't interested in it themselves.

SavageCorona said:

Blood 2 wasn't the worst game of all time. It's decent enough that it has its own cult following, albeit smaller and separate to the Blood 1 following.

Thank you. >_>

TheMightyHeracross said:

I think I'm missing something, because the Steam version is cheaper. What is better about the GOG one?

Packaged better and comes with the soundtrack.

Can anyone shed any light on why Blood wasn't developed by 3D Realms, and why Atari/Monolith seem unwilling to release the source code?

GoatLord said:

Can anyone shed any light on why Blood wasn't developed by 3D Realms, and why Atari/Monolith seem unwilling to release the source code?

For the same reason that Heretic & Hexen weren't developed by id Software, and because:
A) Monolith is gone
B) Atari; 'nuff said

Considering Atari didn't see the potential in an MMO racing game which was actually very well developed and fun to play, I'm hardly surprised they decided to just bang it out on Steam half-assedly without any enhancements or even high resolution support.

Atari is a bag of shit that eats moldy cunts out of an applesauce container before sticking the container up their bunghole so they can shit out again and have a big wet orgasm at the same time while moaning/screaming "CAMPTOWN LADIES SING THIS SONG, DOOODAAAAAAH DOOOODAAAAAAAAHTHAT FEELS SO GOOOOOD!"


Or something overblown and nonsensical like that. Not so much Atari of course, as it is just the people who run it. I guess those guys feel like any move is a bad move lest they repeat their earlier crash which basically killed them for a while, in which case I don't think they ever fully recovered.

Clonehunter said:

Atari is a bag of shit that eats moldy cunts out of an applesauce container before sticking the container up their bunghole so they can shit out again and have a big wet orgasm at the same time while moaning/screaming "CAMPTOWN LADIES SING THIS SONG, DOOODAAAAAAH DOOOODAAAAAAAAHTHAT FEELS SO GOOOOOD!"


Or something overblown and nonsensical like that. Not so much Atari of course, as it is just the people who run it. I guess those guys feel like any move is a bad move lest they repeat their earlier crash which basically killed them for a while, in which case I don't think they ever fully recovered.

That's an inappropriate word to say... bunghole.

I was fortunate enough to have LAN access back in those days and got to play Blood multiplayer without lag with a group of people pretty often. IMO, Blood deathmatch "bloodbath" - was very fun.

I think it was one of the best games, in my top 20 for sure. I'd love to see a true to form reboot a la Wolfenstein New Order / Old Blood. Hah! Old "Blood!"

Chezza said:

That's an inappropriate word to say... bunghole.

Don't get moist on me, Chezza.

i want to finish Blood at some point, but thanks to a lack of source-ports, i'm just not that interested in it. the launcher that comes with GOG is okay, but it controls way too archaic and i'm just not enjoying the challenge at all since my ability to play it is hampered. also, the CD-soundtrack doesn't seem to loop at all, which annoys me to no end.

it's not a bad game, though. i played the shareware a long time back, and it was fun as hell. i just can't really enjoy the GOG version.

I didn't know Blood had CD music.

Avoozl said:

I didn't know Blood had CD music.

Oh it had .