Deathloop developer Arkane Lyon is making a new Blade game based on the popular Marvel character.
Blade is a half-vampire half-human hunter first appearing in Marvel Comics in 1973. In the early 2000s, Wesley Snipes played the character in a trilogy of successful movies. Mahershala Ali is due to take up the role in an upcoming reboot.
The new Blade video game was announced during the 2023 Game Awards (December 7), with Arkane Lyon’s co-creative director Dinga Bakaba writing on X (formerly Twitter) after the show that the game is an “absolute blast to work on. Hats off to the team, you are really fucking killing it. I’ve never been so excited for a project and I’m not crying you’re crying!”
According to an official Marvel blog post, development has only “just begun on the game, which will feature an original story with the studio’s signature immersive gameplay and world-class narrative.”
“We have found the perfect match for the Daywalker in Arkane Lyon, a studio of uncompromising artists who continually push the boundaries of game design and innovation,” Bill Rosemann, Vice President of Marvel Games said in the blog post.
“In addition to their award-winning talent, it’s their personal passion and bold vision for our half-human, half-vampire iconoclast that makes this collaboration a perfect fit.”
A trailer was revealed at The Game Awards that shows Blade sitting in a barber’s chair in France. Towards the end of the trailer, a siren sounds, and Blade dons his sunglasses and prepares to hunt down vampires. You can watch the trailer below:
A Blade game was rumoured to be in development at Ubisoft two years ago. Ubisoft shut down this rumour, however, with an X post that read:
“Sorry to slice up the rumors, we’re not making a Blade game but we can’t wait to see what our friends at Marvel Studios are cooking up for next year’s movie! [Marvel Studio’s Blade was slated for a 2023 release initially] ”
This isn’t the first game Arkane has developed featuring vampires. Earlier this year, Arkane Austin released Redfall, a co-op first-person shooter that received a mixed critical reception. In NME’s two-star review, Jake Tucker wrote that the game featured “low stakes action” and described the title as a “scrappy offering”.
“Redfall squanders the potential of its core premise and the world that has been built around it with uninspiring shootouts and a fairly formulaic structure,” he continued.
In other news, Blade actor Mahershala Ali has spoken about the progress of the upcoming MCU project, saying that he’s “sincerely encouraged” after the long-troubled production underwent a creative overhaul.