Ludography
40/100
Players3 ratings
More scores
Metacritic usersuser score
40/100
GameFAQsTough
3.5/5
Player reviews
62% positive37 reviews
Runs on
Windows, Mac, Linux
Price
US$6.99

Where to get it

BloodNet cover

1993 · MicroProse · Adventure · Cyberpunk

BloodNet

I met her in her penthouse, expecting payment for the freelance job-and perhaps a little more. But I got more than I bargained for. I'm now part of an exclusive fraternity that moves catlike in the night through a world of high technology and senseless violence.

Released
1993
Platforms
AmigaLinuxMS-DOSWindowsmacOS
Genres
AdventureCyberpunkPuzzleRole-playing
Developers
MicroProse
Publishers
—
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
Science fictionHorror
Country
United States
Age ratings
USK 12
Languages
English
Time to beat
8hmain story28hcompletionist

About

BloodNet is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing video game developed by MicroProse Greensburg and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS in 1993. An Amiga port was released in 1994 by Catfish and Teeny Weeny Games. An emulated version for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux was released in 2014.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The interface in BloodNet is point and click with some icon-based commands available from a drop down menu. The game features written dialog and puzzles, in addition to an open-ended travel system and random encounters. An alternate "cyberspace universe" is also part of the gameplay, where codewords are required to travel to different "wells" (cyberspace locations). Role-playing elements are also present in Bloodnet: the player character and other recruitable characters have number-based stats (such as Perception, Hacking, etc.), and combat is centered around the player character's attributes and stats.

Story

A mix of future tech and gothic vampire story, in the cyberpunk style, BloodNet puts the player into the role of a man named Ransom Stark, who must battle a vampire named Abraham Van Helsing that is attempting world domination and save both humanity and the cybernet. Ransom Stark was bitten by the aforementioned vampire, but is able to fight off the infection with the help of a computer grafted onto his brain stem. He must embark on a journey to defeat the head vampire, Dracula, to stop the infection.

Reception

Computer Gaming World in February 1994 approved of BloodNet combining vampires and cyberpunk, non-linear gameplay, "interesting" characters and storyline, and streamlined interface. However, the reviewer said that "the game as a whole left me vaguely dissatisfied", citing a lack of direction in the story and pacing, not enough detail in Cyberspace, "confusing and frustrating" combat, and an unavoidable repeating random encounter. He concluded that BloodNet was "a gem without polish". Dragon gave the game 3 out of 5 stars. Pelit rated BloodNet 82% in the February 1994 issue, with the summary of "beautiful graphics, great atmosphere, but almost everything could have done better".

BloodNet was a runner-up for Computer Gaming World's Role-Playing Game of the Year award in June 1994, losing to Betrayal at Krondor. The editors wrote that BloodNet's "script [...] is one of the most interesting to hit this genre, and the surrealistic aspects to the art style are definitely fascinating". Richard Cobbett of PC Gamer, retrospectively reviewing the game in 2013, gave it a negative review stating that it was confusing, dull, and tedious.

Legacy

A company called "Megalo Music" claims to have written the music for a game titled Bloodnet 2000, which may or may not be a proposed sequel to Bloodnet. The game designer for Bloodnet, John Antinori, has since stated that the sequel was "never meaningfully worked on", and he would not have agreed to the title "Bloodnet 2000" because "Bloodnet was set well in future past 2000".

The game, along with Master of Orion had its some of the assets, including the Amiga and Macintosh rights, being sold to Take-Two Interactive in 1994. Several of the game design team later formed Take-Two Interactive in 1993 and created Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, which was a spiritual successor to the game.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
MS-DOS31 December 1993North America · Europe 31 December 1993
Amiga31 December 1994North America · Europe 31 December 1995
macOS9 January 2014Worldwide
Windows9 January 2014Worldwide
Linux24 July 2014Worldwide

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Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.