I recommend this game to anyone who reads this review. This review is negative so one of the awesome people who made this game can review my criticisms and use them how they will.

Trey and Jason? You are cool in a way that I'd need expletives to convey. Your game has a truly unique setting, no fantasy elements, an actually compelling simple story, and incredible art direction.

This game is something I think can genuinely match up with Dishonored 2 and Dues Ex as the best immersive sim. I don't say that lightly. You are really onto something here. You are fatally close. I've seen what I think your perfection was: That demo I have played for over 21 hours!
This is one of the most exciting and passionate releases of 2024. I have been very interested in this cool as hell immersive sim where you brutally fight human beings with thrown objects, banana peels, the environment, the shadows, your fists, and very rare but incredibly scary guns.

SO why is this review negative? Well... it is for a sadly very simple, basic, but also very hard to change reason.
In the demo, you were a man going into a nightclub full of goons, basic men with fists and men with pipes. There were only 3 guns in that level. They did gory things to people, as efficient and bloody as Hotline Miami firearms.

most importantly though, that nightclub was tight, grounded, and had easily identifiable areas. Everything was jammed together.

However.... Now, in the finished game, I am seeing large issues with the overall design of levels, enemy placement, and lack of shadows, stealth options and way too many guns, which are also weaker.

I love cruel level design. My favorite games are Blood, hotline miami 2 and Bloodborne. I love how hardcore you are going, and encourage you to keep getting harder and crazier. The issue however is: The stealth side of this game, and the brutal melee fighting side, is fast dissapearing, and the levels are too wide and bright.
Take that apartment building lobby below where Mike lives. It's huge. Very well lit. No shadows to sneak in. A knife guy is right there. One of the first enemies the player will see, and he has a kind of big deal of a weapon.
Before that, a goon pulled a gun on me.
In the demo, a man with a gun was final boss type material, and some of the most fun I've had fighting a gunman. It felt like I was really there and had many options to take him out.


Am I someone who can dictate how your game should be made? No.... But I do hope you know that what you had with the original demo is something I much prefer to the current game. You should use many more shadows in level design, not be afraid to embrace minimalism and less overly detailed environments, like how comic books actually used to look.
Do use hard as hell enemies, but don't just throw them at the player in giant well lit serious sam rooms, or else this game will feel more like a kill em all boomer shooter, and less like the awesome and more smaller scale stealth action carnage it used to be.

You are so, so, so dang close to immersive sim AND combat AND stealth game nirvana. your foundations are GODLIKE... now you just have to follow through with it through tight level design, shadows, less enemy spam, and more encouraging of the player to think, sneak and successfully ghost areas.

If you ever want me to help play test or provide more thoughts, please message me. Your game is captivating to me and I really want to do everything I can to see this game be the best it can be.

it autosaved at the Gianni poop part

easily my favourite New Blood game so far, however do keep in mind that in its current state, it only takes about 3-4 hours to beat the first episode (which is the only episode available currently). Anyways 10/10, enjoyed hearing gianni ♥♥♥♥ his insides out in a vent.