I believe that a lot of people, especially those who grew up with fast shooters like Unreal Tournament or Quake, often get nostalgic, not only for that very fast gameplay, but also for that specific retro style of graphics that is difficult to replicate.
If you are among those people, Bloodthief might be the game for you. It is an indie title, actually the first game from an indie developer called Blargis, who documented the entire process of making the game on his YouTube channel. The concept of the game is simple, you play as a vampire, who must kill the evil king, drinking as much blood as possible in the meantime. As Blargis himself describes, this game combines the melee combat of Ghostrunner, the speedrunning aspect of Neon White, the deep and interesting movement system of Ultrakill, and the atmosphere of Quake. This combination is great, because it takes the best parts of the mentioned games, and it really works fantastically. Movement is very fast, and very smooth, but you achieve the right speed by gliding, which is so much fun that you'll hold shift almost constantly, because ultra-fast flying around the map can never get boring. Combat is simple, you have a sword that kills enemies instantly, and in addition you have a parry that you can use for all projectiles, and using the same mechanic rewards you with more blood. Speaking of which, blood is a very important mechanic here. You get it when you kill enemies, and it complements your ability to slide, air dash, and serves as a health bar. What makes you move even faster is that your blood is used up quickly, even if you're not doing anything, so the game forces you to go through the levels as fast as possible.
The level design is also great, since you have many ways to move around, including wall running, the game allows you to be creative, even if the levels themselves are very linear. Despite this, in the levels you can find many secrets, bits of the story and the world that you can read, and more importantly, you can find artifacts that help you unlock new weapons, where each of them has a special perk that makes it different from the others. You're going to die a lot, as Bloodthief is designed to be a tough game, but not in an unfair way. It is commendable that checkpoints are cleverly arranged, and restarting is instant, so you won't waste time between attempts. At the end of each level, you will be shown the time for which you completed the level, as well as the statistics of other players. This competitive aspect is very interesting, because the game already has a well-developed speedrunning community, and it is not at all easy to reach their times. I would also like to praise the game's soundtrack, which is a mix of electronic and retro sound, which perfectly raises the tension and atmosphere when playing.
What must be highlighted is the game's optimization. In a sea of poorly optimized titles, it's really nice to see that this game, even on older hardware, runs flawlessly. On my configuration, I constantly kept 240FPS locked, and a solid 60 frames per second can be reached even on computers with a weaker integrated graphics card. This is especially important for this type of game, because the last thing you want when moving very fast and precisely is drops in framerate, or the hateful stutter.
Bloodthief is a game that really delighted me, and for the initial price of 19.50 euros, which is asked for it on Steam, you get a very fast and very high-quality title.
A copy of the game was provided by the development studio Blargis for review purposes
