Blood Running
Last updated: 2025-06-13
- Addictive gameplay loop in extraction shooter roguelite.
- Appealing and unique pixel art style.
- High-quality sound design enhances immersion.
- Cumbersome inventory management frustrates players.
- Numerous game-breaking bugs severely impact experience.
- Repetitive quests offer poor rewards.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 76% · Negative 24%. Score: 24 / 100
Positives:
- The game is praised for its addictive and enjoyable core gameplay loop, immersive world, and satisfying gunplay. Players find the game engaging and rewarding, with a good balance of challenge and fun. Many reviewers highlight the game's overall polish and potential for long-term enjoyment.
- The game's pixel art style is consistently praised for being visually appealing, unique, and well-executed. Reviewers appreciate the vibrant colors, detailed environments, and overall aesthetic that contributes to the game's atmosphere.
- The game is frequently compared to Zero Sievert, with many reviewers noting similarities in gameplay and mechanics. Some find it more accessible and enjoyable than Zero Sievert, while others appreciate it as a familiar experience with its own unique elements.
- The game's cyberpunk setting and aesthetic are well-realized and contribute to the overall immersive experience. Reviewers appreciate how the visuals, music, and themes create a cohesive and engaging atmosphere.
- The game's sound design and music are consistently praised for their high quality and contribution to the overall atmosphere. Reviewers note that the soundtrack enhances the feeling of desolation and immersion.
Negatives:
- The game suffers from numerous bugs, including crashes, freezes, disappearing items, and broken controller support. These issues significantly disrupt gameplay and can make the game unplayable. The prevalence of these bugs, especially those that are game-breaking, severely impacts the player experience.
- Many reviewers feel the game is unpolished and not ready for a full release, citing the presence of glitches, balance issues, and missing features. The game's early access state is evident in its lack of polish and overall rawness. This suggests that the game needs more development before it can be considered a finished product.
- Inventory management is cumbersome due to limited space, a clunky UI, and missing features like auto-stacking and sorting. Slow cursor movement and the lack of shift-clicking further exacerbate the issue. These issues make managing items a frustrating and time-consuming task.
- The game's quest system suffers from repetitive objectives, poor rewards, and a lack of quality-of-life features. The quest tracker is also poorly implemented, making it difficult for players to find and complete quests. This makes questing a tedious and unrewarding experience.
- A specific bug causes the game to freeze when purchasing items from the shop, especially after acquiring the "Thrifty" skill or buying expensive items. This bug persists across multiple versions and prevents players from making purchases, severely impacting progression. This is a very specific and reproducible bug.
Gameplay:
- The game is a single-player, top-down, 2D extraction shooter with a pixel art style and cyberpunk theme. It combines elements of survival, action, and RPG mechanics, such as skill trees and character progression.
- Players progress by completing quests, daily quests, and bounties, earning experience to level up and unlock skills. The game is more PVE oriented, allowing progression at the player's own pace.
- The game features a limited number of procedurally generated maps. These maps contain enemy factions, wildlife, explorable buildings, and loot.
- Players respawn at the point of deployment, avoiding item loss upon death, but progress is only saved upon extraction. Death results in losing collected items, but the game restarts right before the failed run.
- The game features a companion system, including a Boston Dynamics-style dog. Companions can assist with attacks and carrying items.
Performance:
- The game suffers from significant performance issues, including frame rate drops in menus, specific zones, and when opening the inventory. Some reviewers describe the UI as performing poorly. These issues occur even on high-end PCs.
- The game runs without issues on the Steam Deck and on some high-end PCs. However, performance seems inconsistent across different hardware configurations.
Recommendations:
- Many reviewers find the game enjoyable, well-made, and worth the price, especially given the developer's responsiveness and planned updates. They see potential for it to become a gem in its genre and recommend it to players who enjoy roguelite or extraction shooter elements. The game's overall design framework is considered good, and the price is fair.
- Several reviews express disappointment, citing bland gameplay, lack of polish, and usability issues. Some reviewers do not recommend the game in its current state, feeling it's not worth the full price and may lead to regret after purchase. The game received a 5/10 score, indicating a mediocre experience.
- The game is recommended for players who enjoy extraction shooters, especially those seeking a more relaxed or less expensive alternative to mainstream titles like Tarkov. It's also suitable for players who enjoy gathering resources and upgrading characters and bases, and those who like pixel-style Tarkov-like games.
- Some reviewers suggest that similar games like Zero Sievert or Night Raider offer a better experience. They feel that this game doesn't quite measure up in terms of quality and may not be worth playing, especially considering the pricing compared to its alternatives.
- The game may appeal to players who enjoy challenging experiences with random elements and simple maps with hidden bases. It's also ideal for players seeking a casual experience without long time commitments.
Miscellaneous:
- The game is in Early Access with active developers who are responsive to player feedback and provide frequent updates. Players should anticipate bugs and expect the game to evolve over time as the developers continue to work on it.
- The game offers a decent amount of content, with the main quests and exploration taking around 15 hours. However, the experience is entirely linear, which reduces replayability.
- The review is based on controller input, and may not reflect the experience with keyboard controls. This is important to consider when evaluating the review's relevance to your own playstyle.
- The game currently lacks Chinese language support. However, this does not significantly impact gameplay if the player understands task objectives and key item parameters.
- The game represents a significant departure from the developer's previous title. This point is relevant for players familiar with the developer's previous work.
