An interactive action movie, Bloodshore allows you to control the decisions of a washed-up actor named Nick. You start in a plane with a group of people and are dropped off onto an undisclosed island. Is this Survivor, the popular series involving contests and relationships? Nope, this is a violent contest where you aren’t surviving the environment, you’re surviving other people. It’s kill or be killed, and the company hosting this dangerous contest will provide guns and gear to make things interesting. The winner will become rich and famous instantly. This is a movie where you get to call the shots (sometimes literally). There are over 200 hundred scenes to view, and the decisions you make will determine what you see. It’s a game you’ll want to play numerous times to see all of the outcomes. You can become the last one standing and be victorious, or you might end up with a game over screen. This violent contest is viewed by the world, as it is streamed online to fans all over. You don’t get to just watch the show, but control it!
Here’s what I liked:
An Evolving Genre — The popularity of the Battle Royale genre exploded with Fornite. However, over 20 years ago, this concept was already in place with a Japanese movie that was actually called Battle Royale. This is where the name comes from. Of course, it wasn’t the only movie with a “last man standing” plot. I’ve seen a few, including one starring Stone Cold Steve Austin called “The Condemned”. This was the first movie I personally saw with this kind of plot, and I loved it! There is now a list of Battle Royale games as well as movies. Even recently, the Netflix series “Squid Game” had a similar theme, and this series added has reached out to audiences everywhere. So as you can see, the genre has been going on for two decades and has evolved as people put their own ideas in place. In Bloodshore you get a mix of film and game, giving you a combined version of the genre. You’ll wonder why it wasn’t done sooner!
Multiple Scenes — Like most games that have dialogue options and multiple story arcs, you’ll find yourself wanting to know the outcome of all scenarios. You’ll see one and wonder “what if I chose the other option”. After playing a few times, I still had not seen half of the scenes available. That’s a lot of choices! I don’t love the storyline but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in seeing everything it has to offer. You shouldn’t really get attached to any of the characters. As you know there is supposed to be only one surviving contestant at the end. But who knows, maybe there’s a way you can make it work. That’s what is so intriguing and makes you want to keep trying. There has to be another way! Why else would there be so many options if it was all the same ending? This is what really makes you want to play multiple times.
Here’s what I didn’t like:
Doesn’t Add Up — The script isn’t terrible, but it sure doesn’t always make sense. It’s as if multiple people wrote it but didn’t talk to each other. One example is there is a woman whose profession was an MMA fighter. There is a scene where she gets into a scuffle with another contestant. You would imagine her hand-to-hand combat skills would really shine and she’d make short work of her foe. This does not happen, and she looks like she’s never thrown a punch. There is another inconsistency where a girl is told about an actor but she has no clue who she is. She had not even seen the movie he was in. Later, when the actor references a name, she knows this person as the co-star in the movie she had never seen. I can understand if there are some mistakes based on having multiple decisions and scenes, however, the ones I just pointed out are concrete facts that make it surprising they were overlooked.
Deep Fake Fake — There’s an interesting plot element that brings up the “deep-fake” technology. This is basically a video photoshop. It’s fairly hard to explain, so just know it’s using images of someone to produce a video they were never a part of. While it could make sense in the story, I believe it would be near impossible to do it as a delayed live feed streaming on the internet. The reason the deep fakes are always celebrities is because of the number of images needed to actually pull it off. It needs an excessive amount. The idea was interesting but I didn’t like how it was implemented. I can’t tell you why because it reveals too much about the plot and a possible ending, so I’ll just say I was not a fan of how it was implemented.
Wrap-up
What a great combination of action film and interactive choices. There are so many clips almost hidden away through various choices. I played through three or four times and still have many scenes to witness which keeps me motivated to try again. There is a feature that allows you to skip scenes you’ve seen though some you must watch either way. I wasn’t very impressed with the storyline nor the action, but they did have some clever ideas like mines all around the island that activate to get the people closer to one another (sort of like the fog in Fortnite). It’s entertainment that allows you to choose where the story goes. I neither loved nor hated it, so it lands right in the middle for me as being good enough to sit through but not something that I will be craving to go back to. The acting was all fairly decent, but the inconsistency of the facts was a bit of a letdown. I do wish there were more choices involving combat. It’s much more centered around the contestants and the political agenda of the corporation hosting the streamed content. As far as an interactive movie, it has enough dialogue choices to let you feel in control but at the same time uncertain the outcome will be good. You can’t play it only once, because you do need to experience a good majority of the decisions in order to figure out how you want the story to end. It’s not going to put you on the edge of your seat, but there is enough content to keep you satisfied through at least a few playthroughs.
Score: Reader’s Choice
Bloodshore was published by Wales Interactive and developed by Wales Interactive, Good Gate Media, Wayout Pictures, and Posterity Entertainment on Xbox One. It was released on November 3, 2021, for $19.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.
