Thank you Kruger & Flint Productions for sending us a review code!

Bloodhound was first released for PC in 2023 to mixed reviews on Steam and has a default price of $12.99. It’s currently on sale for 80% off making it $2.59. Nearly a year later, Bloodhound released on PS4 and PS5 for $10.99 and has a 3.5/5 star rating there.

Upon launching Bloodhound, you’ll be greeted by a menu screen with two topless angelic statues that have their breasts pixelated. When you start the game, you’ll get to select your difficulty (easy, medium, hard). After the difficulty is set, you’ll be shown an introduction through comic book-style artwork. There is no text, or voiceovers explaining the bloodshed and the significance of the ring that’s shown. After dismembering some demons, your characters rides off on their motorcycle to some canyon and that’s where you get to take control and kick some demon butt.

Bloodhound takes inspiration from 90s first-person shooters and it shows with the armor system and weapon selection. Your first gun is a revolver and you can duel wield guns if you collect a second one. Other weapons include a sword (infinite uses), shotgun, chainsaw/flamethrower that consumes gasoline, railgun, assault rifle, rocket launcher, and energy rifle. There’s a crossbow and it’s powerful, but sadly it’s glitchy and kicked me out of the game on multiple occasions when I used it. There's not much recoil or atmospheric effect no matter which weapon you fire. I was expecting a bigger bang when using the rocket launcher. Enemies still went down so that's what ultimately matters.

When your character has armor equipped, damage will be subtracted from it instead of your health. When both are depleted, the game will end and you’ll have to reload from your last manual or auto save. There are three power ups that will unlock as you progress through the game. The hourglass lets you slowdown time and dodge enemy attacks Matrix style. The golden bullet will conserve ammo which is super handy. The final power up is an adrenaline rush.

The controls are responsive, but I still prefer using a keyboard and mouse for playing FPS games. In the game options you can enable rumble and auto aim support. Some players may want to invert the Y-axis. The game difficulty can be adjusted at any time so that’s nice.

There are several levels that take place in various locations including a mansion, dungeon, church, graveyard, and multiple hell-like landscapes. Most of the levels have three keys (blue, green, red) that will need to be located to unlock the portal that will transport you to the next area. Many levels also have skull levers that will need to be triggered to open up new areas to explore. If you ever find yourself wandering around in circles with no enemies to fight, you probably missed pulling a lever somewhere. Some maps have secret areas and finding multiple secrets will give you an achievement. There are over forty achievements to unlock for the PlayStation versions while the Steam edition has over one hundred.

Visually, Bloodhound is a bit dated. The weapon and enemies are nicely detailed but the levels themselves are a bit bland in comparison to other Unreal engine games I’ve played. There’s a decent variety of enemies including flying demonic babies with odd symbols engraved on their flesh. You’ll get to mow down priestesses and topless harpies which thankfully have their breasts pixelated so you don’t see anything when you’re close up. There are several brutish male characters including some that wear KKK-style head masks.

Boss battles can be intense and during one of them the enemy kept calling my character a motherf*ck*r. There’s a ton of blood, gore and dismemberment. Occult symbolism including pentagrams are shown quite often as well. Bloodhound is not a game for the faint of heart.

The game campaign took me roughly four hours to complete. Given that it was very mediocre and repetitive, and very dark in nature, I have no urge to play it again. I still prefer the 90s shooters that inspired Bloodhound. If the blood/gore, occult references, or language don’t concern you, I would recommend holding off for a sale.