Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  if you've played gloomwood and still live in england you missed the point of the game
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  I would not suggest getting this right now, its a glorified demo, which it still is really fun and is pretty tense, but 3 hours of gameplay I would just wait for the final release. This game feels great and looks great and is tense. If you like the Thief games or Splinter Cell/Metal Gear Solid stealth to some extent you should probably try this game. Dillon Rogers and David Szymanski are one hell of a team and great force in the video game industry, plus New Blood cannot seem to miss.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  i am disappointed the first safe code isnt 451 but this game is RAW so far edit: i am no longer disappointed. thanks new blood devs i love you.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  ahhh im gonna gloom aHH IM GLOOMING AHHH
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  Pathologic but something actually happens...
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  "Thief with guns" Nah, it's more like Resident Evil had a gangbang with Bloodborne, Dishonored AND Thief, but it's still great
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  Actually read this. I'm putting in yes, because the game is good. HOWEVER. This review is posted at early access release. At present there's only roughly 2 hours of content in the form of 3 levels. The levels are well made, and there's plenty of secrets to find, but that's all the content there is. If you want to support the devs because you love Thief and haven't had a proper immersive sim release in years (deadloop doesn't count) then buy it. If you don't want to spend 10 bucks on 2 hours of game, wait until its been in the oven a bit more.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  I stabbed Gianni I shoot Gianni I made Gianni explode I set Gianni on fire I insulted Gianni after he killed me 9/10 But F*ck them hounds bro
• gamedeal user

  Sep 6, 2022

  i physically cried out in anguish when the game said it was over
• gamedeal user

  Sep 7, 2022

  The overwhelmingly positive Steam rating is more reflective of the New Blood's devoted (and deservedly so) fanbase than the actual quality of this game. If you remove the blinders and bias a bit and assess what is actually here and available to play now, there is absolutely no way I can recommend this game to anyone. It may have potential, but that isn't helpful now. I play a lot of Thief FMs to this day and also equally enjoy The Dark Mod quite a bit. If you go into this game expecting anything like the experience you have in those games, you will be sorely disappointed. People love to make fun if the "dumb" AI in Thief, but Gloomwood's enemy AI makes Thief's guards look brilliant. Patrol pathing is barely present and when enemies do have patrol paths, they are as minimal as it gets and poorly thought out. The first level seemingly has a very nice amount of player path branching when looked for, but further examination shows it to be redundant and more linear than it first appears. Guards are often placed in areas where encounters are extremely easy and obvious where they just stare infinitely at a blank wall or box with zero deviation. Worse yet, there are guards placed at various places that are scripted to stand in place until the player reaches a certain spot whereupon they converse briefly and move to another spot where they often just stand and stare at nothing. These scripted conversations often do not even happen if you attempt to deviate from the intended linear level path and try to get more creative. That would cause some frustration as the spots these areas take place become more difficult to traverse as the guards are stuck staring at each other without the conversation occurring, but the lacking AI makes it easy to simply walk behind both guards and take them out while they nearly face each other. They seem nearly deaf to everything but very specific actions and their alert state lasts about a second before they dismiss whatever drew their attention in the first place and resume their blank staring. Even on the hardest difficulty there is little challenge here. Guards often seem to ignore corpses entirely making the disposal system pointless and even when they do react its a brief alert state change where they shuffle around a small area before resuming staring. I knocked over barrels with bottles atop them with zero enemy reaction and even threw things right in front of them with zero reaction. I found it impossible to get immersed with the AI being essentially the same level of bad as it was in the demo years ago. The main criticism I want to get across is that Gloomwood feels like a game at odds with itself. Many concepts from many great games that all served those games well, but work against each other at worse and are just kinda pointless at best when mashed together here. I like the minimalist (non-existent) hud, but the light gem, or ring, is essential to stealth functionality and needs to be easily and quickly seen rather than an awkward ring that switches to some hard to see angles depending on what you are holding. It would be a bigger issue if the AI weren't so forgiving that stealth is a joke. The presence of guns really destroy the thief formula entirely and are much more suited to a something like Resident Evil, which is fine, but again it is an example of the game working against its own mechanics. You can casually backstab nearly everything and have more than enough ammo to simply shoot your way out of the rare mistake. There is no sense of danger like a survival horror. It tries to be an immersive sim, but the level design is linear and the AI is no where near immersive sim level. The save system also actively works against the immersive sim experience where experimentation is key to enjoyment and looking for fun ways to solve environmental puzzles and break the intended flow of a level are paramount. I am discouraged from trying anything remotely risky if it means repeating a large chunk of linear gameplay again. It feels fine in RE, but it would be out of place in most immersive sims. Overall, there is definite potential here but the game has an identity crisis. Taking a bunch of things that are on their own quite neat in a bunch of great games doesn't make a good game if you just mix them all together. The lack of meaningful progress since the demo leaves me a bit concerned and the current AI and level design is really quite bad for an immersive sim. Things may change in the future and I see a lot of passion here, but there is just no way I could recommend paying $20 for what little content is here and the state that it is currently in.