Review code provided by the publisher
I really wish I couldn’t say that I saw this one coming. When I first had seen the gameplay for Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood I noticed the obviously low-budget graphics but hoped for fun gameplay that overshadowed it. Unfortunately, the game continuously shows its weaknesses with only glimmers of entertainment revealing themselves in bite-sized pieces. For a game that had so much potential, it’s a bit upsetting that fans were given such a mediocre final product.
Story
The game’s main protagonist that players will come to know is a werewolf named Cahal. He and his community of werewolves find themselves in a battle against a mega-corporation known as Endron. During an infiltration gone bad, one of Cahal’s family members is mortally wounded, sending him in a frenzy that results in him killing another member of his community. Years later, he’s left his community but finds himself yet again fighting by their side against Endron to right the wrongs of his past.
While the story has the makings to be something extremely powerful emotionally, it’s completely watered down to be a cliched and tired version of what it was trying to be. Cahal isn’t likable and continuously exudes the toxic-masculinity that you’d find in a game of the 90s. He and the rest of the cast of characters are what help in making this game feel irrelevant and a decade or two behind. All of the characters come across like cardboard cutouts of what they were trying to go for.
Gameplay
On the gameplay front, there are 3 different routes that the game allows you to take in order to get through your missions. Unfortunately, there’s really only one that even remotely makes the game feel like your time isn’t wasted by playing. The 3 different play types are Cahal’s human form, wolf form, and werewolf form. The weakest being the human form of course. That being said, let’s get into what works and what doesn’t.
Cahal’s human form allows him to occasionally speak to NPCs within the game to further the dialogue and gives a little bit of an RPG part to the gameplay. The thing is, its inclusion is very underdeveloped. It doesn’t have any real influence on what happens in the game and the dialogue trees are extremely basic. I get that the Werewolf: The Apocalypse series is primarily an RPG-based franchise but what I don’t understand is why this game struggles to figure out what to do with the RPG elements it has. It seems like this was more of an afterthought and shouldn’t have even found its way into the game at all.
Besides engaging in boring and uninspired dialogue, Cahal’s human form is used during missions for both stealth and stealth combat. His stealth combat can be easily broken down with the two things he can do. He can take people down from behind while undetected or by shooting them the little crossbow he carries around. He gets 3 bolts at a time but there are always some conveniently laying around so that you can restock. Cahal also has a heat-like vision that he can use in any of his 3 forms which can be used to spot enemies, collectibles, and such around each location.
Sneaking around has its moments of intrigue but most of the time feels scripted. By that, I mean that there’ll be a couple of baddies talking, and then when I sneak up they automatically disperse from each other thus creating an opportunity for me to either kill one or sneak past. The enemies have an eye icon above them which shows whether they’ve detected you or not but it can be extremely easy to almost never get caught. Besides that, the sneaking offers nothing else to do besides unlocking doors and “hacking” computers.
The wolf form too is used for stealth but for me seemed to be the more fun approach. It’s cool to play as a wolf and slink around these compounds. Even with how mediocre I feel the game is, this was definitely one of the highlights of the entire thing for me. The difference between the wolf’s stealth gameplay and the humanoid stealth is the fact that the wolf has no combat and it can sneak through little vents to get around the baddies.
The best way to play is as Cahal’s werewolf form. As the werewolf, you’re given the chance to obliterate enemies in a carnage-filled bloodbath. There are actually a bunch of attack types that you can use in this form. There’s the normal stuff like light and heavy attacks, as well as the chance to pick up enemies and tear into them. Besides those, you have a couple of different stances that allow Cahal to use multiple abilities and fight differently. Even though this is the “most fun” part of the game, it really can’t carry the weight of the rest of it.
The enemies are pretty varied and offer enough difficulty for you to fight against. There are bosses sprinkled in every once in a while to shake things up too. Even though there’s enough variation here and there to keep things new, the fighting just seems to stay feeling the same. Fights happen in what I can only compare to waves of enemies coming in the closed-off room until you finish them all off. It’s just a shame that what should’ve been the coolest part of the game seems to be yet another underwhelming or just ok piece.
The last piece of the gameplay is the addition of a skill-tree. It’s very bog-standard and pretty easy to navigate. You get upgrades to fighting, health, and abilities that further Cahal’s strengths. I do appreciate the fact that it’s a more streamlined skill tree as I’m not a fan of huge ones that seem to be in just about every title coming out.
Visuals
If you have seen gameplay or trailers for this game and thought that it definitely looked outdated, you’d be correct. I know that this isn’t a triple-A title, but it really looks like something I would’ve seen at the tail-end of the Xbox 360 era. Characters look the worst out of anything that you’ll find in-game. They often appear lifeless and muddy. That doesn’t mean that the environments look that much better though. It’s also extremely evident that assets are used to death. You’re almost always in locations that look the same from one to another. I just wish that the developers had chosen different ideas than what made their way into the finished product. It’s ultimately what makes the game look so bad.
Audio
I’d like to say that the audio portion of the game is ok but yet again is just another thing that underperforms. Most of the audio that I take issue with is the actors. Their portrayals come across with no emotion which left me unable to feel for the characters at all. I always caught myself rolling my eyes at the dialogue because of its 2D nature.
Replayability
I’ll be honest, I cannot see there being replay value in this game whatsoever. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of the Werewolf: The Apocalypse franchise, you’ll most likely not find any reason to play this game past the first hour or so. I almost couldn’t even find enough power in myself to finish the thing.
What It Could Have Done Better
In case you didn’t get the gist of how I feel about Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, there are more things that the game does wrong than it does right. At the end of the day, this game presents itself as a project that should’ve come out a decade ago. Even though the wolf and werewolf gameplay can be amusing, they aren’t enough to make the game fun enough or even worth playing. What I find funny is the fact that there’s a next-gen upgrade that’s set to come out at some time this year. Unfortunately, I don’t see there being an overhaul of what I’ve already played.
Verdict
I’m sure that by now you can understand what doesn’t work with this title. I really enjoyed the over-arching themes directly from Werewolf: The Apocalypse’s lore and some of the wolf and werewolf gameplay but it was very much so hindered by its own shortcomings. Die-hard fans of the franchise are really going to be the only ones that will find anything to clamor to for it to feel remotely worth a full playthrough. If you’re someone that may want to try your hand at playing as a werewolf and tearing through baddies, I’d wait a few months until you can get a discount on it.
