Blood: Refreshed Supply (Switch) Review
Summary: The classic Weird West shooter lurches onto modern consoles thanks to another mostly solid port from Nightdive Studios
4
I rise again
If you’re a fan of ’90s‑era Doom clones, you’ve probably already heard of, or are a fan of, Blood. Originally developed by Monolith, which would go on to make the incredible Condemned and F.E.A.R. games, Blood: Refreshed Supply is the latest cult classic from the remastering maestros at Nightdive Studios to get reanimated for modern hardware.
“But wait up!” I hear you cry, didn’t Nightdive already do a Blood remaster in 2019? You would be right: Blood: Fresh Supply. However, it was only on PC and was more of a port than a full remaster.
Blood: Refreshed Supply, on the other hand, was rebuilt using the original source code and thus includes a whole slew of fixes to the enemy AI and additional features that were originally left on the cutting room floor. It’s also available on consoles, and since I like playing my old-school FPS games on my Switch, that’s the version I’m reviewing.
Anyway…
Blood is another one of the Build Engine games, like Duke Nukem 3D and Exhumed. Duke may have stolen all of Ash’s best lines, but Blood is probably the closest thing in the ’90s we had to a decent Evil Dead game. It remains a fantastic pastiche of grisly ’80s horror flicks, as you blast your way through armies of eldritch nightmares, axe-swinging deadites (sorry, undead), and tommy‑gun‑packing cultists.
It’s equal parts horrific and silly. The hordes of the undead moan “brains” before trying to hack you up, there’s a disembodied hand that wants to swallow your soul, the cultists all scream occult gibberish at you, and all the poor sods that get in the way of this madness are desperately telling you, “There’s no place like home.”
The premise is pure “find the princess”, with an occult twist. You play as Caleb, a gunslinging cultist who is betrayed by his master, the demon Tchernobog, who murders Caleb and kidnaps his lover Ophelia. However, rather than go and join the choir invisible, Caleb literally rises from the grave to save his beloved, murder the treacherous demon, and kill anyone and anything that gets in his way.
Initially armed only with a pitchfork, you’re tasked with finding the keys you need to get through the doors to reach the end of the level. You know, like you did in that Doom game, except this one has a 1920s‑ish Weird West setting and you can blow massive holes in various parts of the scenery just for kicks (and the occasional secret).
What sets Blood aside from its contemporaries, though, other than its cool setting and ability to punt the decapitated heads of zombies around the level with a satisfying thunk, is the incredible arsenal of weaponry you can use to dispatch foes. There’s a flare gun, which sets the buggers on fire after a couple of seconds, there’s a very satisfying shotgun, a solid tommy gun, and even a voodoo doll.
My favourite, though, is the dynamite. While most games will be sparing with their explosives, Blood encourages you to fling red sticks of explosive death at anything and everything. It’s a risky gambit, but considering pretty much every enemy in Blood seems to be a crack shot and loves ambushing you, wandering into every room blindly tossing explosives and seeing how many body parts bounce around the room feels like a legitimate strategy for not getting gunned down the moment you pop your head through a door. (You can also get crushed by the doors.)
The resulting boom is also incredibly satisfying. It’s a big boom, a big bada boom. You know the type. Between that and the pained death screams whenever you set someone on fire, the insane mumblings of cultists (who clearly aim with the aid of some sort of magic, and are all armed with notoriously noisy and inaccurate weapons, yet the gits never miss — just make it make sense, I mean honestly), the sound is both overwhelming, and it’s clear the game does not take itself at all seriously. Especially when Caleb is busy dropping sarcastic one-liners and receiving prank phone calls (“Does anyone know a Hugh Jass? Is there a Hugh Jass here?”)
Then you hit the level‑done button to be presented with a wall of random screams until you load up the next slice of western‑tinged horror pastiche. There’s even an episode during its 42 levels that has you blast your way through a slightly Overlooked Hotel like a King (get it).
It’s all as compelling as it ever was, too. The enemies are varied, if capable of dishing out far too much damage a little too quickly at times, your means of murdering them are fun, satisfying, and range from the stock to the oddball.
Each varied, action-packed level also flows into the next in interesting ways that keep the pace brisk. You’ll start in a church, then blow a hole in a wall and progress to a railway line and station in level 2, then hop on a train, which you’ll battle your way through, and eventually sabotage in level 3, for it to stop outside a horrific carnival in level 4, and so on until Caleb eventually ends up at the lair of his treacherous patron.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that there are some issues with the game at present on the Switch; it reportedly crashes a lot (although I didn’t have this issue on Switch 2), and the music often cuts out in levels after you’ve quicksaved. Though Nightdive is aware of these problems and is working on a fix, it’s worth bearing in mind. Especially, if you have a habit of quick saving a lot – Something you pretty much have to do in games from this era because there aren’t any checkpoints.
Outside of the main game itself, though, there’s the usual vault of concept art and supplementary material that’s always worth pawing through if you have even the slightest interest in game history and development.
Final Thoughts
Aside from a few technical hiccups (on Switch at least), Blood: Refreshed Supply is another solid console port of a stone-cold classic from the masters of the remaster at Night Dive studios.
What’s most impressive, though, is how well Blood holds up. Much like the horror movies that inspired it, Blood is just as silly and violent as it ever was, but it’s also a masterclass of tight level design, an arsenal of satisfying and strange weaponry, and some of the biggest booms in gaming. If you’re the kind of sicko that loves a good retro shooter, Blood: Refreshed Supply is worth the sweat and occasional tears.
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