Blood Message is a new singleplayer third-person action game from NetEase, publishers of Marvel Rivals and Naraka: Bladepoint. It follows the journey of a “nameless messenger” and his son across Tang dynasty China, and is laced with the “customs, culture, and rich history of the era”. Amongst other sights and sounds, you will join an uprising in Shazhou, Dunhuang and tread the legendary Silk Road trade routes as you “etch a final tale of loyalty” into the helpless, screaming face of Unreal Engine 5.
I know absolutely nothing about any of these historical and cultural precedents, so I will frame things in terms of the mechanics and skits I recognise from opulent manly bonkfests like God Of War. You will: shimmy through narrow gaps, presumably so that the next area has time to load! Lift a huge sliding door so that your AI-controlled partner can scamper under it, bookending your progress! Mash somebody’s mug into the woodwork while performing an environmental finisher! Topple over and slide uncontrollably through collapsing scenery! Remorselessly QTE a cartwheel while trapped beneath the speeding vehicle! There, now – between those two paragraphs, you don’t even need to watch the following trailer.
Watch on YouTube
It’s end-of-day Friday and I am probably being too pissy. Yes, this appears to be another vibrantly violent canyon of exploding or murdersome photoreal furniture, but there is a lot of (romanticised?) history here I wouldn’t mind encountering up close.
I just hope it manages to have a sense of humour about itself, somewhere. NetEase don’t give that impression in their announcement release. “How can countless ordinary people—smaller than dust—leave a mark on history?” it brays. “The Blood Message development team offers this answer: The remembrance and praise of future generations become their eternal monument.” Nice to hear, because the monuments in the trailer don’t seem very eternal: it’s like the masonry is mortared with anti-matter.
Lead producer and NetEase executive vice president Zhipeng Hu adds that this is the “first completely single-player focused experience from NetEase Games”. They are certainly making no bones of the genre markers they’re trying to hit with that video. There’s no release date yet. Learn more on the official site (which, be warned, is hella animation-heavy and may devour your mobile data allowance in one fell swoop).