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Blood Rage

Though the board game its based upon is one of the best current games in the market, this digital implementation is so full of bugs and poor design choices that it seems like Loki must have had a hand in its development.
Blood Rage Game Cover
55%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:graphics, gameplay
Most mentioned negative aspects:stability, story
51% User Score Based on 581 reviews
Critic Score 63%Based on 4 reviews

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Blood Rage Game Cover

About

Blood Rage is a single player and multiplayer tactical city builder game with medieval and historical themes. It was developed by Endava and was released on May 27, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and neutral reviews from players.

Ragnarök is coming! The sky is falling and the end is upon you… In Blood Rage, the digital adaptation of the hit strategy board game, you lead a proud Viking clan in their final fight for glory.

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51%Audience ScoreBased on 581 reviews
graphics16 positive mentions
stability77 negative mentions
  • Faithful and well-executed digital adaptation of the Blood Rage board game, capturing the thematic elements and core gameplay mechanics accurately.
  • Single-player mode with AI is enjoyable and suitable for practicing strategies; recent patches have fixed many initial bugs and improved stability.
  • Good option for playing Blood Rage remotely during times when gathering physically is difficult, with a decent representation of the multiplayer experience when working correctly.
  • The game suffers from numerous bugs and technical issues, such as game freezes during multiplayer, tutorial lockups, and inability to save progress, severely affecting playability.
  • User interface is clunky, unintuitive, and overcrowded, with poor readability of cards and the board, causing confusion and accidental misplays; lack of undo or confirmation options worsens user experience.
  • Multiplayer mode is often unplayable due to bugs, poor matchmaking, low player base, and DLC restrictions, making it difficult to find or maintain games with friends or random opponents.

  • stability

    83 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game initially suffered from severe stability issues, including frequent bugs, crashes, freezes, and problematic AI behavior, making multiplayer often unplayable. However, after multiple patches and updates, many users report significantly improved stability and a much smoother experience, though some glitches and issues persist for a portion of the player base. Overall, stability has notably progressed from a "buggy mess" launch to a more polished, though not yet flawless, state.

    • “After the polish of bugs, the game runs great and is a great digital implementation of an awesome board game.”
    • “While still not entirely bug free, this is still a very fast way to experience a wonderful board game.”
    • “I encountered some bugs in my first ten hours of play, but my last twenty hours have been bug free.”
    • “The game is still broken 3 weeks later; attempts to play multiplayer result in freezes and there's no friends list, so the only way to get in the same game with friends is to open up public slots and hope your friends join first because the game launches immediately once those slots are filled.”
    • “If we're lucky enough to get through the draft, the gameplay is so buggy and choppy that most of the time you can't even get through a single round before the play freezes or something gets caught in a loop.”
    • “That's nothing - this game is totally bug-ridden. We tried multiple games, and none would go past the first draw. Shocking quality control - can't believe developers let this pass. Just read the comments and you'll see it's a total shocker.”

  • graphics

    62 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's graphics are frequently described as overly busy and cluttered, with excessive 3D elements that obscure gameplay and hinder visibility, leading to a confusing board overview. While some appreciate the artistic effort and thematic design, many criticize the performance issues, outdated visuals, and poor optimization that detract from the overall experience. In summary, the graphics often feel intrusive rather than supportive, with buggy and sluggish execution diminishing player enjoyment.

    • “Beautiful artwork and design.”
    • “+ gorgeous graphics, cool vikings theme, and I like the soundtrack.”
    • “Graphics and sound are excellent.”
    • “Bugs freezing the game and an attempt to put effort into the graphics makes it hard to see what is going on on the board.”
    • “The interface isn't intuitive, the graphics are overdone and make it hard to see what's going on, and there's just too much about the game that doesn't work.”
    • “The units and villages (the space in a territory for units) are hard to pick out from the aesthetic map features; one village in particular is entirely obscured by the Yggdrasil tree unless you are zoomed in or scroll well past the middle of the map.”

  • gameplay

    53 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay closely mirrors the board game mechanics, offering balanced, deep, and thematic experiences, especially enjoyable in multiplayer settings. However, it suffers from a poor and confusing tutorial, UI clunkiness, frequent bugs, slow pacing, and a lack of quality-of-life features like saving or async play, which detract significantly from the overall experience. Ongoing developer improvements have addressed some issues, but clarity and polish remain major concerns for new and solo players.

    • “Functions well, mechanics are smooth and dripping with theme.”
    • “Gameplay is exactly the same as the physical game, with me almost preferring this version since it removes the need for setup and tear down.”
    • “It mixes several game mechanics (drafting, figure placement, figure placement and movement, stats...) very well.”
    • “Speaking of the tutorial, I have never been more lost or confused as to what the actual point or mechanics of a game were than with this one.”
    • “The actual gameplay is poor, hard versions of the bots are a cakewalk and add very little to any gameplay you might try and squeeze out of this already dry fruit.”
    • “Launched an unfinished game with too many bugs, slow gameplay and unhelpful design.”

  • music

    21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music is generally praised for its quality and fitting atmosphere, with many users calling the soundtrack great or awesome and appreciating its thematic style. However, several mention the soundtrack is limited, often consisting of a short loop that becomes repetitive over time. Overall, the music enhances the experience despite its lack of variety.

    • “The music is great, and amps up at the right times.”
    • “The music and graphics are just amazing.”
    • “They nailed the soundtrack also.”
    • “There is one song and just a few sound effects.”
    • “The music is a very short loop of some generic Norse-sounding battle theme.”
    • “Disgusting graphics, bugs all around, unintuitive menu, 1 music looping which will drive you crazy.”

  • story

    16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story aspect offers a balanced blend of card drafting, missions, and warrior placement, providing multiple victory paths. However, players note issues with the quest phase being lengthy and sometimes unclear, alongside technical problems such as game freezes during Act 3 quests and limited visibility into opponents' quest progress. There is also no campaign mode or structured missions, which some users might find lacking.

    • “Has a good balance of card drafting, missions, and warrior placement to earn victory points allowing multiple avenues to victory.”
    • “To top it off, shortly after you get a summary window that shows you completed and failed quests so that it doesn't matter if you were paying attention.”
    • “Sometimes it is difficult to follow what the computer is doing without the log, especially when it plays quest cards.”
    • “No sort of campaign or any type of missions/challenges.”
    • “I still have another quest to complete and there's literally nothing I can do while my timer counts down. I tried everything and nothing worked.”
    • “Ended up having to quit out of our multiplayer game when one player couldn't play his cards, and ended up soft locking when quests were completed.”

  • optimization

    13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization is widely criticized for poor performance, running slowly and glitching even on newer, capable systems. Many users experience lag and bugs that detract from gameplay, indicating significant issues with efficiency and stability across various hardware.

    • “Everything else runs smoothly and is still just as fun as the board game.”
    • “Maybe it hasn't happened to me yet because I only played a few games, but I have had all my games run smoothly and without bugs.”
    • “The game performance is super slow even on 'very low' graphics specs.”
    • “This game is such a huge disappointment with how poor the performance is, even on decent dedicated graphics (able to run Witcher 3, but not this).”
    • “The game is horribly optimized and runs incredibly slow and clunky – even on a new system that runs much more demanding games and programs.”
    • “Update 2: 05/20/2021 - the game is still buggy and un-optimized.”

  • grinding

    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The grinding aspect is generally seen as slow and tedious, making the gameplay feel less smooth and fluid. However, some users appreciate that it automates the repetitive work and is more cost-effective than the physical game.

    • “It's significantly less money than the physical game and does all the tedious work for you.”
    • “Slow and tedious.”
    • “Overall, the gameplay is not smooth and 'fluid' but slow and tedious.”

  • atmosphere

    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere receives mixed feedback: while some appreciate the sound design and thematic elements that capture the tension of the original board game, others feel that issues in gameplay detract from the overall experience. The animation and music are praised, contributing positively to the ambiance.

    • “The atmosphere is really nice with the sounds and themes.”
    • “I cannot speak about the multiplayer mode, but at least in single player it is perfectly playable, and I really enjoyed discovering the similar tension and atmosphere as in the original board game.”

  • replayability

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Users praise the game for its great replayability, indicating it remains engaging and enjoyable across multiple playthroughs.

    • “Great replayability.”
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63%Critics’ scoreBased on 4 critic reviews
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4h Median play time
4h Average play time
3-4h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 3 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Blood Rage is a tactical city builder game with medieval and historical themes.

Blood Rage is available on PC, Mac OS and Windows.

On average players spend around 4 hours playing Blood Rage.

Blood Rage was released on May 27, 2020.

Blood Rage was developed by Endava.

Blood Rage has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked Blood Rage for its graphics but disliked it for its stability.

Blood Rage is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.