Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood Review
Release Date: February 4th, 2021
Developer: Cyanide Studio
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PC
Price: $49.99 ($59.99 - Gaia Edition)
The beauty of video games is they can make our wildest dreams come true, putting us in the shoes of just about anyone and anything a developer chooses to build around and make a protagonist of. We've seen life through the eyes of vampires, every animal imaginable, candles, aliens, kitchenware, and more, but, outside of a few fighting games, werewolves haven't necessarily seen much representation, leaving potential for an easy hit in an untapped market for people who are obsessed with that sort of stuff should the opportunity arise and given the proper time and passion put into it. With Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, the time for werewolves to shine is here as its tabletop-inspired story and roots are fleshed out in a hack-and-slash stealth hybrid… or at least, that's what it seemed like and should have been. What we have instead is a poorly put together game with no passion or thought behind any of its core foundation, and we're left with a dated mess that feels like a canceled game that happened to get a second chance at life when it should have stayed canceled.
To some, Werewolf: The Apocalypse may seem like a new IP, but its roots actually come from a tabletop game of the same name, based in the World of Darkness series, where werewolves are constantly in a war with both spiritual corruption and an infrastructure of civilization causing less land to be made available in favor of society. Despite its tabletop background, however, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood vaguely uses it as an inspiration, and instead just tacks in some lore while providing an experience that, while not the worst, is simply too basic, linear, and dated for its own good. Whether you fancy yourself a board game connoisseur or not, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood feels like a basic hack-and-slash experience that harkens back to the early days of the PS2 (two) and Xbox 360 era where there was an abundance of action titles both big and small from the likes of Asura's Wrath, Ninja Blade, Heavenly Sword, God Hand, God of War, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Chaos Legion, and myriad others owned their respective console generations in a way we haven't seen since, and while these came in a variety of critical responses, it seems Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood was meant for this time period more than anything else. While some would argue that a game and its reception can be a product of its time, some remain classic and are still enjoyed to this day, but Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood is about as mediocre and mundane as one can get, and though this would have been one of those "sure I'll rent it" type games back in the day, in 2021 it simply has no place as it just tries too hard to be something it's not. You can blame funds, you can blame creative direction (or lack thereof), but any good project works around the parameters set for the vision in mind and needs to be flexible for any sudden shortcomings that may impact its progress of coming to fruition. Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood doesn't feel ambitious or even remotely tended to; it just feels like a couple of kids got together, said "werewolves are badass, dude" and put stuff together that "looked cool" until they called it a day.
In Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, you'll take control of Cahal, a mercenary who can shapeshift into a werewolf (as well as a regular wolf for traversal and better stealth) who eventually becomes excommunicated from his tribe after a mission goes terribly wrong and he accidentally kills another member. While trying to make things right and stop an enemy corporation from polluting and causing harm for profit, he reunites with his tribe with the agreement of helping to stop Pentex Co. from causing further harm to the natural environment, where a lot of the wolves and tribes reside. It's a straight-forward story that somehow collapses in on itself by having little to no emotion or merit in anything that's being said and conveyed, with even more linear and uninspired level design that gives the illusion of flexibility when it's in fact a sequence of triggers and inevitable fights no matter how stealthy you want to be. Levels are set up in a way that's repetitive and uninspired, and even though the combat is enticing and arguably the only decent portion of the game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood has this odd guise of seemingly insisting you stealth, despite the lack of reward in doing so, and having little to no impact on the success and/or completion of a task or sequence. Many times I would stealth-kill everyone, thinking I was in the clear, only for a wave of enemies to initiate immediately after the "final" kill was made when I should have been able to safely proceed. This was on *multiple* occasions and got to a point where stealth - one of my favorite things to do in games and a genre I adore - became an afterthought as it was just quicker and more efficient to simply get caught on purpose and start mauling away.
The combat of the game is decent enough, however - thanks to its brutal nature and metal music - that most would probably want to just turn into a werewolf as quick as possible anyways and unleash mayhem (as well as a mechanic called rage) as they clean through waves of enemies from each room using a typical basic and strong attack combination for maximum carnage, while slowly but surely building up necessary meters for more special attacks where you can pounce on others, do huge area-of-effect attacks, and eventually reach a level where your various stances can all match up and be used at once to make you virtually unstoppable for a short period of time as you fight and bite away with both speed and ferocity. The inclusion of a skill-tree thanks to Earthblood's Action RPG approach makes things nice as you work towards something that isn't entirely disappointment elsewhere, giving the ability for more passive, buffs, and special moves that can be used for all available forms. Through the help of spirits which can be naturally attained as you progress as well as hidden in various places, these will help give you skills and guide you as you go throughout the game, though with the barebones nature of it, I never really felt like there was enough challenge to warrant switching out much, and you can go through the game without worrying much about looking for some of the others. A lot of what Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood does just feels like it's either ignored or serves no purpose, making the game entirely feel like it's bloated with no proper direction or anything worthwhile.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse would have been somewhat of a decent game if it was a launch title on the PS3 or 360, though ultimately regardless of what year it would have come out it doesn't change from the fact that Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood remains a boring trek through a cliché storyline with no spark of interest or light to help give it any semblance of worth. I couldn't help but feel throughout my playthrough that my time was wasted as I rarely felt like there was anything rewarding happening (let alone making sense), and the few times the combat got me excited enough thanks to its hack-and-slash mechanics and metal music, it quickly waned and became unfulfilling as fights were almost always scripted even if you successfully stealth across the entire area, because once you've taken down the last enemy, it would initiate a fight as if you were caught, making the stealth portion of the game feel completely pointless as you can get through areas quicker (and a lot more enjoyable) by simply fighting your way through. Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood is an unfortunate mess that, believe it or not, would have been much better if it was aggressively bad rather than immensely mediocre, because then at least you could get a few laughs and enjoyment out of it. Instead, I found myself bored and scoffing at the terrible character designs, poorly written dialogue, and uninspired voice acting that continuously made playing this game feel like a chore rather than anything with merit.
PROS:
The heavy rock and metal gives it DMC vibes that accentuate the atmosphere of combat
The hack-and-slash, while basic, is competent enough to feel fun mauling through enemies
CONS:
An uninspired direction plagues the game, from its levels to characters to menus and beyond.
Repetitive, unpolished, and almost a little too "try-hard".
The game feels dated in just about every department of its design
Thank you to Nacon Interactive for providing us a copy of the game for the purposes of this review