Blood Message Is Visually Stunning, Seemingly With the Gameplay to Back it Up | IGN Preview

I’m such a sucker for gorgeous action games, especially when they have the storytelling to back it up. Give me beautiful violence and something that looks as good as it feels – a game that is as stunning to watch as it is to play. I want to be engaged in the drama and the combat alike, feel the adrenaline pump through my veins from incredible set pieces and up close in personal action. In short, I want what Blood Message seems to be offering.

With a much-anticipated gameplay reveal at Summer Game Fest 2026, and a detailed breakdown with the developer at IGN Live, Blood Message checks every one of those boxes. Its Unreal Engine 5-powered graphics look incredible. Its action is tight, violent, and incorporates an impressive level of environmental interaction, while the narrative, grounded in the real history of 9th century China, tells a personal story against the backdrop of a transforming empire. After going hands on with Blood Message, I’m ready to take up my sword, and join the fight.

Shazhou City, the setting for this section of Blood Message, is a longtime strategic center on the Silk Road, and has been seized and under Tibetan rule for decades. The people are on the verge of revolt, and the city has become a powder keg, ready to ignite. As the demo begins, our character Pei Changguan is accompanied by his brother Arrtai. He’s returned home in hopes of finding his son, and fleeing the coming bloodshed with him. However, he arrives to find the city has been ransacked, and his son is nowhere to be found.

This true history is one of Blood Messages narrative pillars. Shazhou City is a real place and, in 848, the year this game takes place, Zhang Yichao led a rebellion to overthrow the city's occupiers. This will be a linear, highly cinematic story-driven adventure, telling the story of Pei and his son on their perilous journey, as that powder keg ignites.

This will be a linear, highly cinematic story-driven adventure, telling the story of Pei and his son on their perilous journey. After searching through the scattered belongings for clues, Arrtai finds a trail of blood. He’s able to follow it, but collapsing shelves block my path and separate the brothers. I’ll need to find an alternate route, and as I weave through narrow passages, I’m ambushed by a Tubo soldier, a warrior for the occupying army. He slams me into the wall, and tries to force my head into his sword, though I’m able to fight him off with a brief quicktime event and slash his throat. A nearby door bursts open, as Arrtai clashes with another group of soldiers, and I rush ahead to try to even the odds.

Blood Message looks (visually) amazing, with spectacular lighting and textures throughout, especially when inspecting things like cloth artwork up close. Yet despite the detail, action was fast and smooth. Flicker lighting from flames, accumulated grime, and the sheen of sweat on characters all combine to make this one of the best-looking games I’ve seen to date. It’s also quite bloody – appropriately so, given the grounded and realistic tone it is striking.

Based on the trailer, I thought we were getting something similar to the recent God of War games, set in 9th-century China. While the combat certainly has some of that DNA, with light or heavy attacks, block, parrys, and dodges, it actually feels very different with the weighty, kinetic violence. Breaking through the enemies’ guard and landing a blow is significant; it only takes a few clean slashes to down someone and set them up for a brutal finisher, and taking a few hits of my own was enough to drop me to the ground, desperately holding off foes from doing the same, as I struggle to my feet to continue the fight. After some tense back and forth, we emerge victorious and push forward.

No one seems to have noticed the commotion, and we quietly scale the wall to an upper level, ducking just in time to avoid the gaze of an approaching patrol. As they turn their backs, we spring our ambush, cutting their throats simultaneously, and we press on undetected.

While Pei is more than capable in a fight, he’s no one-man army, and will often need to use stealth in order to silently pick off enemies or avoid them altogether. Fortunately, he has a solid bag of tricks. Crouching to walk quietly and avoid line of sight helps, as does the ability to leap and eliminate unsuspecting soldiers from above. I appreciate that the enemies don’t instantly recognize him as a threat, giving a chance to either quickly get out of view, or take them out before they realize what has hit them. Traps, like boxes on pulleys or spices that can be scattered in order to blind enemies offer an intriguing layer of environmental options to choose from too.

Our sneaking comes to a halt, however, when we encounter soldiers butchering townsfolk, and Arrtai flies into a rage, and rushes them. This time the group is larger, and more heavily armed. It’s a challenging fight, as they take advantage of their numbers and attack in pairs, with warriors carrying shields that stuff my initial swings. This was going to be tough.

Fighting is more complex than just waving a sword around. While the light attacks are quick and relatively safe, it takes heavy attacks to break the guard of the soldiers with shields. It’s easy to get surrounded, and it takes several perfectly timed parries and dodges to stay alive. These soldiers don't go down easy either, fighting for their lives even after being wounded or losing their weapons.

It’s tense and violent. There was no sense as I clashed swords and found space to strike true that I was fighting health meters, each hit felt potentially deadly. Driving my blade into enemies was as satisfying as it was brutal. I was especially impressed by how context-aware this was. One moment in the demo I was cutting down enemies standing, the next I was plunging another's head into a trough of water before piercing his throat. Throughout these fights I would do things like drive my sword into the neck of one person, then shove them into the path of an incoming slash, or crash a vase into the enemy’s head to escape being pinned to the ground.

Arrtai and I separate, and I press on, silently dispatching one enemy, and using the terrain to avoid the rest. It seems like I’m in the clear, until I come across a massive warrior with a colossal mace at his side, berating his soldiers for failing to find rebels. He sends one right into my path, leaving me little choice but to eliminate him and take off running. I hoped I might slip by undetected, but a flying bookcase, and the mace crashing though it right after, told me pretty clearly that wasn’t going to be the case. Time to run!

Blood Message definitely borrows elements from both The Last of Us and God of War, and from what we’ve seen, does so exceptionally well. As I dashed through the streets and corridors of the city, arrows flew past, and the occasional piece of flying furniture told me that the giant with the mace wasn’t far behind. It was a heartpounding sprint; doors opening and closing, and structures collapsing forcing me to quickly pivot and find the new path forward, with jumps and the occasional QTE demanding fast reactions. My adrenaline was pumping as I leapt from one building and crashed through the rooftop of a chicken coop before emerging though the gate into a street to get lost in the crowd and lose my pursuers.

Finally, after all the fighting, sneaking, and running, I arrived at Pei’s home, and reunited with Arrtai. Pei called out to his son Ning to gather his things, but no one answered. The home was abandoned. A note, left behind by Ping, declared his intention to join the burgeoning rebellion. In a hidden compartment under the floor, Pei retrieved his sword. “Take me to find Zhang Yichao!” he demands, as our demo comes to an end.

Blood Message has drawn comparisons to both God of War and The Last of Us. That's rarified company and, while it’s still too early to say it belongs in that echelon, it definitely borrows elements from both, and from what we’ve seen, does so exceptionally well. But it also has a clear identity of its own, with a setting grounded in real history and drama, and action that feels like every blow counts. While it is confirmed for PC and consoles, no release window has been revealed yet, so be sure to keep an eye on our Blood Message hub for updates, you won’t want to miss this one.