A new action-adventure game set in medieval China, Blood Message, has been revealed with a suitably epic trailer for its epic historical journey.
Developed by NetEase's 24 Entertainment Lin'an Studio, Blood Message will be a "cinematic, singleplayer, linear story-driven action-adventure" powered by Unreal Engine 5 and released for PC and consoles. NetEase said in a press release that it considers Blood Message to be "its first AAA singleplayer title."
And wow, what a trailer. Set during China's Tang Dynasty, often considered the true golden age of Chinese history, Blood Message is about a nameless messenger and his young son making the 1,000 mile journey from Dunhuang to the Chinese imperial capital at Chang'an as they seek aid from the Tang Empire for an uprising against the occupying Tibetan Empire.
NetEase says the game will be narrative-driven and—if you didn't guess from the trailer—focus on cinematic storytelling. The gameplay will feature "brutal survival combat" mixed with "stealth and survival mechanics," says the publisher.
"The game invites players to step into the shoes of unsung heroes—not emperors or generals—but ordinary people driven by extraordinary resolve," reads NetEase's announcement. "As part of a righteous uprising in Shazhou, Dunhuang, the father and son must navigate a collapsing world, torn between duty to country and love for family."
Even more insightful to the development philosophy here is the statement from developer 24 Entertainment Lin'an in a press release:
"How can countless ordinary people—smaller than dust—leave a mark on history? The Blood Message development team offers this answer: The remembrance and praise of future generations become their eternal monument," said 24 Lin'an.
For my part I'm really impressed with the amount of historical material already on display in just the trailer. The setting isn't just window dressing, with NetEase describing it as "a cultural landmark of Chinese history that frames the story with customs, culture, and rich history of the era."
There's no better example than the outro scene of the trailer, where dust rushes off a beautiful mural to reveal the lovely colors beneath—it's the first image in the gallery, below. A cursory search for the historical events revealed to me that it's a fictionalized restoration of a real mural about the Dunhuang uprising and its general, Zhang Yichao. It's in the Mogao Cave complex (the "Thousand Budda Grottoes") near modern-day Dunhuang—here's a picture of it on Wikimedia commons.
It's the kind of historical detail that delights me as someone who loved the Chinese historical epic movies of the early 2000s. I'm certainly adding Blood Message to my hotly anticipated games list.
You can find more at blood-message.com, where you can also sign up for a newsletter, giveaways, and "opportunities to participate in global playtests." (And also listen to some great background music.)
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