While the trailer doesn’t delve into the new game’s plot, it could be quite useful to those among you looking to see what the fuss is all about. It provides a quick recap of Styx’s motivations with the game’s signature style and fourth-wall-breaking antics on full display.

For those of you returning from the previous two games, you might be excited to know that Blades of Greed puts our favorite thieving goblin in charge of his own crew aboard a zeppelin, along with a handy gliding tool that lets him traverse the larger world he’s exploring with ease. You can learn more about what’s new right here, and perhaps make an informed decision about whether you’re picking up a copy ahead of its February 19 release for the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Publisher Nacon and developer Cyanide have announced that Blood Bowl 3 will be launching for PC and consoles in February next year. Like its predecessor, the fantasy sports title looks set to deliver a blend of brutal action and tactical gameplay, with extensive team creation rules, core gameplay based around a new ruleset, several races to choose from, an improved competitive mode, a solo campaign, and more being touted among the sequel’s biggest features. Check out its release date trailer below.

Blood Bowl 3 launches on February 23, 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store).

It noted that the closed beta test from June provided plenty of “incredibly helpful” feedback and the developer is currently looking to make improvements. “Our primary concern is the quality of the game experience we will deliver when the game releases and we want to take enough time to achieve these quality goals. That’s why we have to announce a delay of the early access on PC.” A new release window would be provided in the coming weeks.

Like its predecessor, Blood Bowl 3 is a fantasy sports title with a turn-based tactical twist. It’s currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. For more details on its campaign and sponsors along with some new gameplay, head here. Stay tuned for more details on its early access release in the coming weeks.

Hi everyone,

We've been quiet for a while, but not inactive.

It's been long overdue. It's time to give you an update on Blood Bowl 3. pic.twitter.com/fs0MWzi96a

— Blood Bowl The Video Game (@BloodBowl_Game) September 22, 2021

Meanwhile, Blood Bowl 3 is, of course, also also going to have a single player campaign, and publisher Nacon also debuted a new trailer focused on that aspect of the game. Features such as changing pitches, the campaign’s setup, competing sponsors, and more are detailed, while some new gameplay is also shown off. It’s not a particularly long trailer, but still shows quite a bit. Check it out below.

When Blood Bowl 3 launches in February of next year, it will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

At its core, Earthblood stays true to its source material. You take control of Cahal, who is part of a clan of Garou, beings who can switch between the default human, the quieter and quicker wolf, and the larger and stronger werewolf, which is only available when Cahal gives into his Incredible Hulk-style rage. The overarching villain is the energy megacorporation Endron, which has some cartoonishly evil schemes that Cahal and the entire clan want to stop by infiltrating their facilities and taking down their operations.

"For everything that makes Werewolf: The Apocalypse an interesting idea, both in its tabletop RPGs and its pre-release content, there are too many other problems in Earthblood to make it an essential addition to the World of Darkness franchise."

In gameplay, the possibility to switch back and forth between forms allows for different theoretical paths through every encounter. Each encounter is effectively split into individual rooms of enemies, and most can be completed with either stealth or action. Stealth is a relatively industry-standard affair, though adding the wolf element makes it mildly more interesting. You try to pick off enemies one-by-one until the room is clear, and certain guard patterns often make it evident as to which order is most efficient to avoid being spotted. Unfortunately, there are very few options to assist with your stealth, apart from hiding behind barriers and using the wolf to fit into some very conveniently placed ventilation ducts. You can only take down one enemy at a time; there aren’t any distraction techniques; and there are commonly pairs of guards looking in opposite directions to make staying hidden almost impossible. You have a crossbow with severely limited ammo, but even using this can unexpectedly alert nearby enemies anyway.

If you are ultimately spotted, which you will inevitably be in the vast majority of encounters, you automatically turn into your werewolf form, where you are much more powerful and are thrust into the center of combat. Taking control of the werewolf is easily the game’s most impressive and enjoyable feature, simply because of how powerful it makes you feel. You can take down the average security guard in a single blow, and you can traverse entire rooms in an instant. Naturally, the game won’t let you fight only those weak guards, so there are some big robots and guards with shields that make you do a little more work to bring them down, including some late-game enemies that feel almost unfairly spongey for their size. What gives you a leg up in combat is your Rage, a meter that builds up as you take down enemies and allows you to perform stronger special attacks and heal yourself. You also build up a Frenzy meter, which, when filled, lets you go into a much more powerful, almost invincible state that effectively serves as a get out of jail free card. Even in boss fights, filling the Frenzy meter was more often than not a death sentence for the boss, regardless of how much health they had left.

These moments of pure strength make up Earthblood’s most satisfying gameplay moments, but the gameplay is otherwise diluted, making these moments fleeting. While the werewolf combat is great in spurts and has its strengths, it becomes altogether too repetitive to stand up on its own. For a game with this werewolf combat, it would make sense that it wants you to get into action more than stealth and would make the stealth more difficult, but it’s puzzling why it feels like it punishes you for being spotted. When you get into combat, you’re almost inevitably going to face multiple waves of enemies through reinforcements, and, while you can technically disable some reinforcements by locking their doors, it never felt like there were ever any fewer, even if I had disabled every door.

"While the werewolf combat is great in spurts and has its strengths, it becomes altogether too repetitive to stand up on its own."

Moreover, there are only a handful of distinct enemy types outside of bosses, and this game falls into the trap of making the game more difficult simply by adding more enemies, which is both frustrating and overwhelming, especially when you’re multiple waves deep in an encounter. This all creates a combat environment that feels punishing without much reward or diversity. By the end, I wasn’t having much fun taking down enemies because it felt like the game was trying to work against me with too many waves of enemies or an unending sequence of encounters with no respite. Even boss battles, which are some of the more interesting combat encounters, felt more like brief interludes between the repetitive combat than special combat encounters that tested my skills.

There are a few other gameplay interludes that break up the combat sections. The game is semi-open world, as you can explore the environments on your own time or return to your base, where you can talk to other members of your clan. But I never felt a reason to do this. The environments are drab and lifeless outside of the main mission areas, and there’s little to find. The collectibles you can find around the world add little to either the gameplay or the story, and mission markers almost always lead you directly down the linear path you need to take to progress the story.

Even the few side missions are generally contained as minor offshoots of linear sequences, and they’re very insubstantial, as are the dialogue trees, which have no real purpose here. Some dialogue choices allow you to give into rage and fight the person you’re talking to, but again, this choice feels unimportant and has few repercussions. If you do move around the environments, you’ll likely be using Lupus, Cahal’s wolf form, which is a more enjoyable way to move around because he can run faster and jump higher, and when you’re not in combat, there’s overall little reason to ever switch away from Lupus. The game forces you back to Cahal’s human form when he talks or interacts with something, but this feels more restrictive than necessary, especially when he continues talking when you want to switch back to Lupus for stealth.

"The game forces you back to Cahal’s human form when he talks or interacts with something, but this feels more restrictive than necessary, especially when he continues talking when you want to switch back to Lupus for stealth."

The story feels half-baked as well. The game takes place five years after Cahal leaves his clan of Garou for failing to save his wife from death. Cahal returns to the clan to help them in their plot to tear down Endron, the reasons for which are unusually both unclear and overbearing. At first, it seems to be assumed that Endron is bad because they are an energy megacorporation, without much explanation as to why. You are tasked with entering the facilities and killing hundreds of workers, some of which are civilian employees, which they justify at one point by saying that anyone who works for Endron is complicit with their schemes and deserves to die.

Later on, there is an almost cartoonishly evil plot by Endron to utilize a new biofuel, the eponymous Earthblood, in their subjects, but the motivations for doing so are never really explained. It feels like Endron is just there as a binary evil who you’re expected to hate without much explanation or justification, but for a game that thematically explores controlling your rage and anger, it’s not particularly apt to unilaterally hate a company without any grey area. As the game progresses, too, there is a sharp turn in the story that comes almost out of nowhere and feels like an entirely new game. Cahal’s motivations here are admittedly more direct, but much of it still goes unexplained and the ending doesn’t do much to wrap up many of the game’s questions.

The game’s writing doesn’t help the story’s issues either. Dialogue is very hit-or-miss, and the voice performances are often emotionally misguided. Characters rarely react to things in a natural way, which isn’t helped by the character models and animations, which can feel janky and stiff, especially in dialogue. It’s not the most graphically compelling game, though there are some intriguing places in each environment, and even in combat enemies animate in distractingly unnatural ways. As a silver lining, while it doesn’t push the next-generation hardware to its limits, it had few bugs and ran smoothly for my entire playthrough, even with a large number of enemies on screen at once.

"Later on, there is an almost cartoonishly evil plot by Endron to utilize a new biofuel, the eponymous Earthblood, in their subjects, but the motivations for doing so are never really explained."

What makes werewolves an interesting gameplay concept is their ability to change in an instant to the most powerful being in the room. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood tries to expand on that gameplay concept but never really ascends above its floor. The gameplay itself becomes stale over the course of just a few hours, and the presentation and story make the motivations and themes both more confusing and less intriguing. Apart from intermittent moments of sheer power, Earthblood never realizes its potential in almost any area, and what seems like a great idea on paper turns into an underrealized mess.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

The World of Darkness universe is getting plenty of representation in the video games space, and will continue to receive more for the foreseeable future. The next game based on the tabletop universe, Cyanide and Nacon’s action-RPG brawler Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, has launched worldwide now.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood sees players stepping into the shoes of werewolf Cahal, who fights against the evil megacorporation Endron and put an end to their machinations. Cahal can take one of three forms – that of a human, a wolf, and a werewolf – and use each forms’ unique abilities in combat, traversal, and exploration. All the while, players have to manage Cahal’s rage meter as well and ensure he doesn’t go on a violent rampage on innocent NPCs. Check out the game’s newest trailer below.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. You can learn more about its combat, levels, story, and more in our recent interview with game director Julien Desourteaux through here.

"The environmental part of the license will be at the center of the story we tell in our game."

Werewolf: The Apocalypse stories tend to have very strong and consistent themes, from social issues to environmental issues and a lot more. How much of a part is that going to play in Earthblood’s story?

Obviously, the environmental part of the license will be at the center of the story we tell in our game: Werewolves fighting for the Wyld spirit to protect Gaïa from an evil corporation, Endron – led by the Wyrm – devastating nature to gather all resources and feed their greed.

But Cahal will also have a more personal quest inside this big picture (which I won’t say to avoid any spoilers).

In the World of Darkness universe, while vampires tend to integrate themselves into human societies, werewolves tend to live more on the fringes. How will this play into the narrative, and how will it manifest in terms of gameplay mechanics?

In our game, Cahal left his former pack after a tragic event and serves the cause as a Ronin (a lone mercenary) with only but a few human allies.

But as his Caern (a sacred place in a Werewolf territory) is in great danger, he will join them back while seeking redemption, and will face Endron to protect their territory.

He will have to interact with werewolves and other NPCs, friends or foes, with whom he’ll have to talk or fight his way through in order to gain access to specific locations.

Of course, in case of failure during the dialog the combat is always a valid solution to pass any situation.

How much of an emphasis will the game put on player choice? Are there multiple endings that players can get depending on their actions?

The story is straightforward, but the player has to choose how Cahal will approach a situation, either by sneaking around doing some stealth assassination or charging on enemies in his Crinos form.

Also, during dialogs, he can choose the way he will answer to his interlocutors or the topics he wants to discuss.

And we have two different endings based on choices made by the player in specific situations.

"The story is straightforward, but the player has to choose how Cahal will approach a situation, either by sneaking around doing some stealth assassination or charging on enemies in his Crinos form."

The Rage meter mechanic is one of the most interesting elements of this game, and the idea of players not being in control of who they’re attacking and killing when their Rage overflows is a particularly interesting one. Can you talk about how this will play into things such as stealth, combat, and even conversations with NPCs? How dynamic can players expect this mechanic to be? Additionally, will this have any narrative impact or impact on how quests progress?

Actually, the rage is like a resource that you gather by doing stealth kills or using flasks you can find by exploring the levels. It will fill a rage bar that you can use to perform special skills when you are in Crinos.

While performing combos in Crinos (especially on the Agile Stance) you will gain Rage and Frenzy.

When the frenzy bar is full, you unlock a 3^rd stance that is the Frenzy, where Cahal is more powerful and has a great resistance until he empties his bar. But using this special stance will lock your special abilities and your combos you might lose a bit of control.

What has your approach been to world design in Earthblood? Roughly how large will the individual locations in the game be, and how varid can players expect them to be?

We alternate between huge areas where the player is free to explore and use his wolf form to navigate faster to do secondary missions within Endron’s facilities outposts, before entering other areas where he will reach for his main objectives.

What’s progression like in Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood? How much control will players have over their upgrades and powering up and gaining new abilities?

By completing secondary and primary missions and serving or finding spirits, players will be awarded spirit points that they can spend in a skill tree with 2 main branches. One of them is more tactical and the other is dedicated to fighting.

Shapeshifting abilities are, of course, another one of Earthblood’s major draws. Can you talk about how much work went into ensuring that each of three different forms players can take felt meaningfully different from each other? How have you approached designing levels or combat and stealth encounters to ensure that players will have opportunities to leverage the unique advantages of each of these forms in different ways?

Each form is specific and is bound to several gameplay mechanics. The human form is about interacting with people and the environment, the wolf is great to sneak, travel quickly, or use narrow places to hide. Of course, when you fight you will use the more convenient form, that is the Crinos.

All areas (except for boss fights) are designed for the player to choose the way he wants to manage the situation he is facing.

But as I told before the fight is always a valid solution.

"By completing secondary and primary missions and serving or finding spirits, players will be awarded spirit points that they can spend in a skill tree with 2 main branches. One of them is more tactical and the other is dedicated to fighting."

With these shapeshifting abilities in mind, can players expect Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood to have immersive sim-style elements, where each objective can be completed in one of several ways, with plenty of room for experimentation and player choice in gameplay?

As the objectives are often about sabotage or destruction, we kept the freedom of approach but not really alternative ways to accomplish the objectives, except for a few missions where it is more about information gathering or terminating specific targets. In these cases, the player will find alternative ways to complete those missions.

Combat in werewolf form looks rather interesting, and quite different from anything we’ve seen in previous Cyanide games. Can you talk about the process of coming up with a combat style that felt punchier and more action-oriented, and what the game does to ensure that those aspects are highlighted?

It has been a long road to achieve this, because as you mentioned, it is the first action / combat-oriented game made by Cyanide. We really wanted the player to feel what it is to be a werewolf.

Since the beginning, we wanted a kind of Brawler with combos and special abilities, bound to a rage system with stance gameplay, allowing players to change them very quickly (even during a combo). We wanted to give the freedom of choosing to be agile and fast to earn quickly some rage to perform special abilities, or trading this mobility for strength and resistance. It is like playing a rogue and a heavy armored knight at the same time and switching from one to the other by only pushing a button!

On top of that, to challenge players, we have different enemy archetypes that will be more efficient against one stance or the other.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood be?

It is quite hard to tell because it will really depend on how players like to take their time and analyze the situations they will encounter or explore the levels…

But roughly for a straight experience only focusing on the main objectives, it will last around 12 hours.

NOTE: In response to questions about the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S’ specs and tech-specific features and their impact on development, Desourteaux had this to say:

I think it is too soon to say because from our experience on the development of Werewolf – The Apocalypse: Earthblood, we could only see a great technological gap between the old and new gen and I think that the real difference might be done later or maybe at the end of this new console generations.

We’ll let you know as soon as we will ship our first games specifically targeted for those new consoles!

"Roughly for a straight experience only focusing on the main objectives, it will last around 12 hours."

What resolution and frame rate is the game targeting to run at on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S? Will the game have multiple graphical modes?

We will be 1080p with Vsync, so if your screen is 120Hz it will run 120 FPS, and less if you have a 75/60 Hz (75/60 FPS).

Next month will kick things off with a little of nature’s revenge in Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, a game based on the tabletop RPG series about a group of werewolves battling the pollution of big tech. The game will include the ability to transform into three different types, (which you can see through here), and will be coming to a variety of different platforms. That includes PC as well, of course, and we now know what rig you’ll need to play it, and thankfully, you won’t need a beast of a machine to do so.

On the minimum settings, the game will need an Intel Core i5-3470 or AMD FX-8370 with 4GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 or AMD Radeon HD 7790. Recommended only bumps that up to an Intel Core i7-8700 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X with 8GB of RAM with Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290. Unfortunately, as of now, it does not list the amount of space you’ll need. Keep in mind the PC version is also coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store when it does launch.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood will release February 4th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC. We sat down for an interview with game’s director, where they revealed the main narrative path would be roughly 12 hours, and that full interview will be live soon, so stay tuned.

MINIMUM:

• OS: WINDOWS 10 
• Processor: Intel Core i5-3470 | AMD FX-8370
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 650, 1 GB | AMD Radeon HD 7790, 1 GB

RECOMMENDED:

• OS: WINDOWS 10 
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700 | AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780, 3 GB | AMD Radeon R9 290, 4 GB

Cyanide’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is one of the major releases in February and for good reason. Playing as an eco-terrorist werewolf, one must take down the Pentex corporation while dealing with their fellow brethren. To accomplish this, three different forms can be utilized – check out the launch trailer below courtesy of IGN to see them in action.

The three forms are human, Lupus (regular wolf) and Crinos (werewolf), each with their advantages. Human form is necessary to interact with people, hack computers and attack from range. Lupus is great for stealth and is far more agile. Crinos, which has Agile and Heavy stances, is your main brawling mode and can either provide fast attacks or tankiness.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is out on February 4th and will be available for PS4, PS5, PC (via the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. Its main critical path offers 12 hours of gameplay though some side content may be in place to extend that. Stay tuned for more details on the title in the coming week.

Cyanide is going to branch out into uncharted waters with its next game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, which, with its action-heavy combat, is looking like a pretty different prospect from what the developer has typically worked on in the past. If the game’s got your curiosity piqued, you can also look forward to a fairly meaty adventure.

Speaking to GamingBolt in a recent interview, game director Julien Desourteaux commented on how long players can expect the upcoming RPG to be. Desourteaux mentioned that though the play time will vary depending on how players are tackling certain situations, the average play time should be about a dozen hours- if you’re only sticking to the main story, that is.

“It is quite hard to tell because it will really depend on how players like to take their time and analyze the situations they will encounter or explore the levels,” he said. “But roughly for a straight experience only focusing on the main objectives, it will last around 12 hours.”

12 hours isn’t a massive amount of time, but it’s still pretty solid, especially considering the fact that that only accounts for the main story, and side content will obviously add to that length. Besides, given the deluge of massive multi-dozen hour games out there, a relatively more concise experience sounds pretty good.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is out on February 4 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Our full interview with Desourteaux will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.