Blade was the only thing I was really looking forward to seeing in last night's Xbox Games Showcase. I ended up being pleasantly surprised by Grounded 2, at least, but when we finally got to the end of the barrage of trailers I was still waiting for my vampire fix.
I'm mostly just bummed out by its absence, but I'm also a wee bit worried.
While a Marvel game doesn't feel very Arkane, Blade actually seems like a pretty decent fit. He's sneaky, supernatural, tactical and slick AF—all things that play to the studio's strengths.
The cinematic teaser shown off at The Game Awards in 2023 was heavy on the vibes and light on the details, but it genuinely got me excited. The one thing we did learn was that Blade would be hanging out in Paris, doing some old world vampire slaying. And Paris should be a great playground for Arkane's exceptional brand of level design.
Concept art released shortly after only served to make me salivate more, and reinforced my excitement over the setting, as it echoed Dishonored and, more overtly, Dishonored 2.
At the time, Ted said, "You've got that distinctive 19th century European architecture contrasting with harsh industrial tech—it's practically screaming artist Viktor Antonov's iconic designs for Half-Life 2 and Dishonored." It was ticking all of my very specific boxes.
It's now been a year and a half, and we don't know the setup, we've not been given any hints about how it will function mechanically and we don't even know if it's going to be first or third-person.
The Xbox Games Showcase would have been a perfect opportunity to fill in some blanks—even if it's not going to be out this year, which it absolutely won't be. But it looks like Arkane's not ready to show anything off yet.
And yeah, let it cook. I don't want Arkane to rush. But it worries me that it was ready to announce the game all the way back in December 2023. Games get announced way too early all the time, sure, but this still suggests that Microsoft, Bethesda and Arkane expected to have more to show off in the near future.
That they haven't given us anything makes me wonder if there have been some major road bumps. Arkane hasn't even tweeted about it since it was announced.
I have no doubt that Arkane can produce something exceptional if it's just left to it, but it's an Xbox studio now. And Microsoft is absolutely ruthless. Just look at how it treated Tango Softworks. Even if you do release a great, popular game, you still might end up on the chopping block. And Microsoft didn't just shutter Tango Softworks, it also killed off Arkane Austin at the same time, following the failure of Redfall.
So Arkane's already been a victim of Microsoft's cost-cutting measures. And it was a vampire game that led to this dismal state of affairs. I really don't want another vampire game to spell the end of the surviving Lyon studio.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't know if Arkane is in trouble, and Blade's development might be going smoothly. But it's an incredibly tumultuous time for the industry and we're losing talented studios left, right and centre, so this lack of communication is noteworthy.
I'm also concerned that Microsoft probably isn't going to have Arkane's back because it's not a big earner. The studio has given us some of the most incredible immersive sims and stealth romps to ever grace PC, but these games simply don't sell well. Giving Arkane a Marvel game—as much as Blade is a good fit—feels like a desperate attempt to find something for it to do, something that might make Microsoft some cash.
But all you need to do is look at Midnight Suns—despite being one of Firaxis's best games, it landed with a thud—to see that the Marvel label isn't a guaranteed winner these days.
So yeah, feeling a bit nervous about this one, folks.
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