Of all the video game genres to have made a return, the FMV game is perhaps the most surprising. A once-forgotten relic of PC gaming and failed experiments like the Sega CD, FMV games have seen a resurgence that has been spearheaded by publisher Wales Interactive. Together with The Complex developer Good Gate Media, the duo is adding another game to their growing FMV library in the form of Bloodshore.
Taking cues from the likes of Series 7: The Contenders, Bloodshore is another take on the well-trod trope of the Most Dangerous Game. There is an in-game universe television show called Kill/Stream, where fifty participants are dropped onto an island, Fortnite-style, and must kill each other to win their chance at a life-changing amount of money. Although Kill/Stream started with death row inmates, it's now open to the public to apply to get their hands on the cash and the fame that comes with it.
Bloodshore effectively utilizes a structural template similar to that of Battle Royale and The Running Man, and of course to the most recent notable example of Squid Game. There's a satirical angle to Bloodshore, with an anti-capitalist angle that prods gently at the notion of people watching others suffer for their entertainment. It's not the most incisive of examples in the sub-genre, but nonetheless works rather well.
This is helped by the deliberately over-the-top acting of a lot of the cast, with a bubblegum exuberance that solidifies the game's standing as something not to be taken entirely seriously. The most prominent contestants are a bunch of vloggers and influencers, while the main character is the former star of a Twilight-esque series of movies. Meanwhile, the action regularly cuts to the reactions of viewers and television shows dissecting the events, which fit excellently with the overall tone.
That said, Bloodshore does feel a little muddled, and partly that's down to the extremely niche set of characters that the player follows, as only one of the starting group sits outside of the media industry. Having people from various backgrounds could have made it more interesting, as a bunch of influencers with generally comfortable lifestyles doesn't work as well with Kill/Stream's aim of manipulating truly desperate people. There may be those living in poverty elsewhere among the competitors, but the players will never see them.
From a gameplay perspective Bloodshore works absolutely fine, although of course those expecting a high level of control will not gel with the FMV experience. The player will make binary choices that pop up from time to time, and these make way for branching pathways for the player to choose. Although the end result of most outcomes is the same, particularly the end of the game, there's actually more choice here than in most FMV games, and it adds an extra layer of replayability. Bloodshore also lets the player track of how their choices impact on the game, such as with audience opinion or team morale, which hints at how they could play the game differently with subsequent playthroughs.
Although the central gameplay loop and story of Bloodshore is solid, there are a few issues with sloppy execution that hold it back. The game is of course heavily reliant on the quality of its footage, and the editing could certainly be tighter here and there. Equally, there's an awful lot of walking through the woods, meaning that the bane of the likes of The Hunger Games returns - those scant moments of ultra-violence are impactful, but they’re few and far between, with the majority of the contestants getting bumped off without the player having any interaction with them.
Overall, though, Bloodshore is still one of the better examples of the FMV revolution. It's a lot of fun to experience, and leans into the cheese that both successfully works with a lot of FMV games, and for examples of the stories it is emulating. The game has its issues, but as a hokey piece of B-movie fun it's worth replaying to find its various story strands.
Bloodshore releases 3 November 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided with a PS5 download code for the purposes of this review.