(This review was made during early access)
Gloomwood is another game from New Blood Interactive and like their other games it’s awesome. In Gloomwood you play as “The Doctor” who has been kidnapped by the sickly huntsmen. Shortly after you are rescued by the mysterious merchant and are set free to start your journey into the nearby city.
Gloomwood takes heavy inspiration from the Thief games, for god sake the developers used to own the domain “thiefwithguns.com” that would link to the games steampage. This doesn't mean that Gloomwood doesn't have its own identity. Right now Gloomwood focuses a lot more on the rural setting unlike Thief that sticks to an urban setting. secondly just like the domain says Gloomwood has GUNS and nice ones at that. Gloomwood has more of a flow between combat and stealth instead of Thief sole focus of stealth.
The maps of the game are also great. They have tons of ways to get through them and the immersive sim elements are fun and are logical. I’ve found tons of ways through the levels and interesting ways to use the game's tools too. The only map design thing I really didn't enjoy was The Mines. They were quite short, linear and without many possibilities for creative problem solving. But in the greater scheme of things it is not huge that one level is boring. The current final level is The City and I really enjoyed it. It really encapsulates what I enjoy about immersive sims and stealth games. That is the free form gameplay where you plan your own path with map markers or waypoints. So while there is only one objective in the city I'm excited to see the rest of them and locations get added in the future.
While Gloomwood is far from finished but I see true potential for some truly great even in New Bloods portfolio this is already one of my favorites from New Blood.
Gloomwood is another game from New Blood Interactive and like their other games it’s awesome. In Gloomwood you play as “The Doctor” who has been kidnapped by the sickly huntsmen. Shortly after you are rescued by the mysterious merchant and are set free to start your journey into the nearby city.
Gloomwood takes heavy inspiration from the Thief games, for god sake the developers used to own the domain “thiefwithguns.com” that would link to the games steampage. This doesn't mean that Gloomwood doesn't have its own identity. Right now Gloomwood focuses a lot more on the rural setting unlike Thief that sticks to an urban setting. secondly just like the domain says Gloomwood has GUNS and nice ones at that. Gloomwood has more of a flow between combat and stealth instead of Thief sole focus of stealth.
The maps of the game are also great. They have tons of ways to get through them and the immersive sim elements are fun and are logical. I’ve found tons of ways through the levels and interesting ways to use the game's tools too. The only map design thing I really didn't enjoy was The Mines. They were quite short, linear and without many possibilities for creative problem solving. But in the greater scheme of things it is not huge that one level is boring. The current final level is The City and I really enjoyed it. It really encapsulates what I enjoy about immersive sims and stealth games. That is the free form gameplay where you plan your own path with map markers or waypoints. So while there is only one objective in the city I'm excited to see the rest of them and locations get added in the future.
While Gloomwood is far from finished but I see true potential for some truly great even in New Bloods portfolio this is already one of my favorites from New Blood.