If I told you there’s a game about environmentalist werewolves that fight big oil/pharma, you would say that I’ve strolled too long on the dark web, well guess what, there is a game like that, and thanks to the folks at Cyanide Studios and Nacon have brought the tabletop RPG by World of Darkness and White Wolf Publishing to life in the game Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is based on the tabletop RPG from the 90’s that takes players to a world where spirits affect worldly events and from the shadows are the Garou, a race of werewolves who fight to keep the order and balance but have their work cut out for them as one of these spiritual forces known as the Wyrm has become hell-bent on the complete and utter destruction of the world and influences corporations such as the fossil fuel industry.
In Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood the story follows a disgraced Garou warrior named Cahal who put himself into self-exile after losing control of himself in his Werewolf form resulting in the death of a packmate. Cahal returns to protect his pack from Endron, an oil company heavily influenced by the Wyrm that seeks to wipe out the pack defending their land.
Now, onto the game itself! In the game, players can take on three forms of Cahal, there’s his human form, his stealthy Wolf form, and then his combat Werewolf form, as typical being an RPG, there’s a massive skill tree where players earn spiritual points by completing missions and tasks.
or interacting with plants and totems they find.
When it comes to controls, it’s pretty straight forward when you’re in your human and wolf form but when you’re in combat in the Werewolf form, they do become a bit complicated and there are light agile attacks and strong attacks that you can switch to and from in the middle of combat which unfortunately makes it complex especially while you’re trying to keep Cahal alive.
The sound in the game is alright, at some points depending on where you are in the game, the ambiance loop is too short so you’re hearing things repeatedly for example, when you’re at the Pack’s home, the sound of the wind blowing and rustling cloth is played over way too much. The soundtrack is really good and fits the story where it’s light when it needs to be but turns to metal when it’s time to become a werewolf.
One of the disappointing things when it comes to the sound is the voice acting. The biggest thing that gets me in this (and pretty much anything where there’s voice acting in animation/games) is the actor’s tone not matching the actions of their on-screen character. In one part, Cahal on-screen is reacting frantically but the voice has a “meh it’s cool bro.” tone to it, this is in both cinematic and in-game cut scenes.
The art is beautiful in this game especially when it’s night out and you’re in the Pacific Northwest. What’s really cool is the Penumbra vision, which’s a spiritual view of the spirit world but allows Cahal to see where enemies are located as well as tracing electrical lines connecting security cameras to computers and to see which enemies are infected with the Wyrm spirit that will make them a harder enemy to fight. You may also discover some friendly spirits in the forest… or this guy.
Overall gameplay is pretty decent. Though the combat controls are complex, the hacking and slashing of your enemies is fun, especially seeing the carnage you left behind (large pools of blood) which is what you want to see in a game involving werewolves. The story is interesting but I feel that too much of the lore/history from the source material is stuffed in it that you feel like you’re on the outside of an inside joke and trying to fit the pieces together to figure out what happened before you showed up.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is a good Werewolf game for those who are fans of the genre but the odd animation/voice acting ratio, animation glitches during dialogue, complex combat controls, and abrupt ending hurt my rating, but the hack and slash nature of the combat, beautiful art, soundtrack matching the vibe of the game, and interesting story saves it at the last minute.
On my scale of 1-10 stars Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is a 7.
