God is dead, his rotting flesh now a poison rather than a sacrament. The road ahead is long, dark, and dangerous, and should you falter, it’s not your humanity on the line, but everyone else’s.
Alder’s Blood, developed by Shockwork Games and published by No Gravity Games, is a dark Western-esque game that shares a tone with both Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and the unspeakable horrors of Lovecraft. In this stealthy tactics adventure, you assume the role of Chief, leader of a clan of hunters and good friend of Duke, the man seen in promotional material for the game. At the start, Duke has gone missing, and you and your fellow hunters are dead set on finding him. Your investigation takes you to a hill surrounded by beasts, and the outcome looks grim.
This is where combat mechanics begin to be explained. Each of the Hunters in your party carries two weapons, a large one like an axe, sword, or gun, and a small dagger. Though the larger weapons do more damage, it’s often a better strategy to stick with your blade and perform backstabs. When an enemy is attacked from behind, they are stunned for a turn, providing you with a chance to either finish them off or escape. But Alder’s Blood is a balancing act, and it doesn’t take long for this to become apparent.
Every action a Hunter takes costs stamina, from throwing a rock to distract a monster, to making a break for cover. Deciding how to use each Hunter as effectively as possible is tricky, but key if you want to get through missions alive. By leveling Hunters up, you can increase their chances at success in the field, by giving them buffs like higher chances to crit or reduction to the distance their scent travels. Because yes, there’s a scent mechanic in this game. And that’s not the only stimulus you’ll have to manage. Beasts are not only sensitive to smell, but also sound. This makes the use of any firearms a risk, and beyond that, there are enemies called Shriekers that will scream an alarm to alert their compatriots if they see you.
Stealth is vital to get by in Alder’s Blood. Avoiding detection makes missions easier in general, but there are also some enemies that you just don’t stand a chance against. On top of that, killing enemies lends greater strength to the Darkness you’re trying to combat, and banishing them, something only Hunters can do, comes at a steep cost. This work takes its toll, and each Hunter will gain more and more corruption as time goes on, causing them to develop weaknesses to different kinds of attacks or damage. Banishing Beasts causes them to deteriorate even faster, so you’re often in a sort of rock and a hard place situation as you determine whether your Hunter can take another hit, or if one-shotting a Beast is really worth it.
Because of how quickly they expire, Hunters aren’t really meant to last you the whole game. New ones can be recruited to your party via the camp system, which is really your all-around Hunter-hub. Recruiting Hunters ain’t cheap, however — you’ll need silver to do it. Wealth is accrued either by scavenging during your camp time and getting lucky, or by completing missions with a cash reward. Once again, you’re left to juggle a multitude of factors, as camping costs resources like food and you open yourself up to the possibility of an ambush if you don’t post guards. But traveling to do missions also eats up your resources — again, it’s a balancing act.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167825245/alders-blood-a-victorian-western-tactical-stealth-game
Once a Hunter hits the point of no return, or you’ve just obtained a new recruit you’d like to power up, you can make a sacrifice. Only Hunters that are more experienced than the one you want to power up can be sacrificed, but doing so transfers their power on, and hopefully allows the newly dead to finally get some rest. But Hunters aren’t the only people you’ll have to manage.
Alder’s Blood, despite some less than stellar dialogue, has a deep and interesting world drenched in its own set of politics and social norms. As you pursue your quest to stop the Darkness, you’ll meet leaders of factions in this society, and decide how you want to interact with them. While it’s clear that this isn’t really Chief’s forte, creating strong alliances with those who hold actual power in this world is key since Hunters are seen as little more than Exiles on their own.
Typing all this out, it seems a bit overwhelming. But one of this game’s biggest strengths is that while it has so many interlocking systems at play, it never feels like too much. New wrinkles in the systems are introduced over time, allowing you to adjust before more is thrown at you. Balancing everything can still be tricky, don’t get me wrong, but that’s part of the fun. Figuring out how to maneuver through a mission, deciding which of your Hunters can continue and which are too far gone, creating friendships or rivalries with factions — all of it adds to the feeling of this world as a real place with real problems, and people who are dealing with them in a very human way. For as many helpers as there are, there are just as many looking to use these dark times for their own advantage. Chief and his crew are left to figure out which is which, and it adds a welcome overarching tension to the game.
And that was honestly enough to keep me engaged. As I said, some of the dialogue isn’t great (a lot of the conversations just don’t feel natural) but the overall worldbuilding and stakes pretty much make up for it. Paired with the layered systems things stay perpetually interesting. God may be dead, but the world of Alder’s Blood is very much alive.
Alder’s Blood review code for PC provided by the publisher.
Alder’s Blood is out now on PC and Nintendo Switch.