The first time I played Blood was way back in the summer of '97. I was 12 at the time, and well versed in the ways of the FPS. I had blasted my way through Wolfenstein 3D, the Dooms, Quake, Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D... I thought I had seen it all. Then along came Monolith to blow everything out of the water with it's own macabre brand of fun. Sure, it was the same Build Engine that powered Duke Nukem 3D, but gone were the colorful comic-book inspired locations and brightly lit urban environments. Gone were the hilarious one-liners and pop culture jokes. Gone were the invading alien bastards and their plans for enslaving earth. Taking their place were dark, dank and decrepit mortuaries, monasteries, and mausoleums, the aliens replaced with zombies and beasts and raving cultists. The morbid ambiance flowed sanguine like the fresh blood that would soon be spilled. It was time to paint the town red!
It only took me a level or two to realize that Blood had just as many snappy one-liners and wink wink, nudge nudge moments as Duke Nukem 3D, they were just a much more subtle and darker brand of humor. The references to classic horror abounded, oozing out of every crevice in the complex and brilliantly designed levels. The main character, Caleb, was decidedly a connoisseur of the arts as well, as he spouts wonderful references to classic films and Shakespearean plays, and if you let him idle for a while he'll start singing some improv showtunes. There's a brilliantly moody midi soundtrack that sets the tone wonderfully, but if you leave the game CD in the drive you'd be treated to a chillingly ambient soundtrack, with haunting choirs and chanting cultists. With Blood, the bar had been raised far over the precedents set by Duke Nukem 3D, and in my humble opinion serves as the epitome of what makes a Build game good.
So then 22 years later in 2019, Blood had been out for a while on Steam and GoG, but it was just the original DOS version running in DOSBox, very underwhelming in terms of presentation. But what if it could be MORE? Well Night Dive Studios certainly took that into consideration, as they had Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal reverse engineer the entire game as best as possible at the time and port it to his amazing KEX engine, which is the backbone of many other Night Dive re-releases such as Turok 1+2, System Shock Enhanced, Forsaken, and Strife. The result was Blood: Fresh Supply, a smooth amalgamation of the classic DOS gameplay with a host of modern conveniences such as newer graphics API support, high resolutions, and so on. They ripped out the heart of what made Blood so good back in the day and resurrected it in a new body, so to speak. But still, it wasn't QUITE perfect enough.
Now 6 years later in 2025 Blood: Refreshed Supply is out not only on PC but consoles as well, and it proves that yes, you CAN teach an old Cerberus new tricks. Rebuilt on top of the original source code, we finally have a 1:1 remaster that feels JUST right. The gameplay physics feel just right, the graphics are presented properly at last with the right tonemapping, and on top of both the SC-55 and CD soundtrack we now have the OPL version also included. Night Dive also has had the original cinematics remade in full modern quality from scratch, no shitty AI upscaling here. The best part though is the fan campaign Marrow has also been included, with Death Wish coming in a future patch. And that's just the single player, the multiplayer has also been revamped with full crossplay as well between the PC and console releases. The vault feature that Night Dive has been adding into their games lately is there also with an absolute coffin-load of development artwork, behind the scenes info, and alpha levels.
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