Blood Message is the first narrative-driven game in development by NetEase, the Chinese publisher behind hits like Marvel Rivals and Naraka: Bladepoint, and it’s swinging for the fences based on its first moody trailer.
The game is a third-person action-adventure game that has a hint of Uncharted meets Assassin’s Creed, which is another way of saying that it looks like a big-budget AAA game where the sheen as important as the gameplay itself. You play as a “messenger” and his son, both of whom are caught up in an uprising that will test their familial ties and country loyalty.
Here’s how NetEase is describing it:
Set during the final years of the Tang Dynasty, players will traverse a treacherous 3,000-li (around 1,000 miles) odyssey back to Chang’an, the heart of the Tang Empire. Cross lethal landscapes including desolate deserts and the vast wilderness of East and Central Asia to survive brutal sieges, unforgiving terrain, and overwhelming odds. The game’s setting in the last years of the Tang Dynasty provides a cultural landmark of Chinese history that frames the story with customs, culture, and rich history of the era.
Blood Message is the latest example of China flexing its growing dominion over prestige game development, and the enormous potential for the medium as cultural export. In the same way Black Myth: Wukong garnered interest by tapping into a popular Chinese novel, Blood Message looks toward Wuxia as inspiration for its setting. It’ll likely be a hit regionally, if not globally, through the sheer strength of its visuals and novel influences.
At the same time, there’s something deeply derivative at the core of Blood Message, a game that wears its intention of courting mainstream appeal on its sleeve. The visuals are impressive, but the art direction looks like something out of an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo. Like, literally. Here’s the reveal for the engine from five years ago; it also looks like an Uncharted action game partially set in a desert landscape full of vaguely cultural artifacts.
Mind you, this isn’t a knock on China. It’s not as if the West is a beacon of creativity at the highest echelons of game development, either. Black Myth: Wukong had a hint of ChatGPT to it, yet I loved that game. And to its credit, Blood Message’s proposal is being met with plenty of praise based on the comments on YouTube.
“NetEase is cooking,” one top comment says. “What Ubisoft could’ve been….Looks phenomenal,” another reads.
Blood Message doesn’t have a set release date yet, but it’ll be out for Windows PC and unspecified consoles.
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